Four Ways Joe Biden Outperformed Election Norms
A Nov. 23 Federalist article lists four ways Joe Biden magically outperformed election norms:
1. 80 Million Votes
Consider this: no incumbent president in nearly a century and a half has gained votes in a re-election campaign and still lost.
President Trump gained more than ten million votes since his 2016 victory, but Biden not only overcame President Trump’s record support among minority voters and also shattered Barack Obama’s own popular vote totals.
The former VP managed to gather a record number of votes while consistently trailing President Trump in measures of voter enthusiasm.
2. Winning Despite Losing Most Bellwether Counties
Biden is set to become the first president in 60 years to lose Ohio and Florida states on his way to the election. For a century, these states have consistently predicted the national outcome, and they have been considered roughly representative of the American melting pot as a whole. Despite national polling giving Biden a lead in both states, he lost Ohio by eight points and Florida by more than three.
For Biden to lose these key bellwethers by notable margins and still win the national election is newsworthy. Not since the Mafia allegedly aided John F. Kennedy in winning Illinois over Richard Nixon in 1960 has an American president pulled off this neat trick.
Even more unbelievably, Biden is on his way to winning the White House after having lost almost every historic bellwether county across the country. The Wall Street Journal and The Epoch Times independently analyzed the results of 19 counties around the United States that have had nearly perfect presidential voting records over the last 40 years. President Trump won every single bellwether county, except Clallam County in Washington State.
A map of 19 bellwether counties that have voted for the winning candidate in every presidential election from 1980 to 2016. The 18 counties marked in red voted for Trump, while the one in blue voted for Biden.
Whereas the former VP picked up Clallam by about three points, President Trump’s margin of victory in the other 18 counties averaged over 16 points. In a larger list of 58 bellwether counties that have correctly picked the president since 2000, Trump won 51 of them by an average of 15 points, while the other seven went to Biden by around four points. Bellwether counties overwhelmingly chose President Trump, but Biden found a path to victory anyway.
3. Biden Won Despite Democrat Losses Everywhere Else
Randy DeSoto noted in The Western Journal that “Donald Trump was pretty much the only incumbent president in U.S. history to lose his re-election while his own party gained seats in the House of Representatives.” Now that’s a Biden miracle!
In 2020, The Cook Political Report and The New York Times rated 27 House seats as toss-ups going into Election Day. Right now, Republicans appear to have won all 27. Democrats failed to flip a single state house chamber, while Republicans flipped both the House and Senate in New Hampshire and expanded their dominance of state legislatures across the country.
Christina Polizzi, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, went so far as to state: “It’s clear that Trump isn’t an anchor for the Republican legislative candidates. He’s a buoy.” Amazingly, Biden beat the guy who lifted all other Republicans to victory. Now that’s historic!
4. Biden Overcame Trump’s Commanding Primary Vote
In the past, primary vote totals have been remarkably accurate in predicting general election winners. Political analyst David Chapman highlighted three historical facts before the election.
First, no incumbent who has received 75 percent of the total primary vote has lost re-election. Second, President Trump received 94 percent of the primary vote, which is the fourth highest of all time (higher than Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon, Clinton, or Obama). In fact, Trump is only one of five incumbents since 1912 to receive more than 90 percent of the primary vote.
Third, Trump set a record for most primary votes received by an incumbent when more than 18 million people turned out for him in 2020 (the previous record, held by Bill Clinton, was half that number). For Biden to prevail in the general election, despite Trump’s historic support in the primaries, turns a century’s worth of prior election data on its head.
Joe Biden achieved the impossible. It’s interesting that many more journalists aren’t pointing that out.