From Vox:
To reliably win the Electoral College, Democrats need to win the popular
vote by 3 or 4 percentage points. To reliably win the Senate, they need
to run 6 to 7 points ahead of Republicans. To reliably win the House,
they need to win the vote by 3 or 4 points. As such, Democrats need to
consciously strategize to appeal to voters who do not naturally agree
with them. That’s how they ended up with Joe Biden as their nominee.
Biden was not the choice of the party’s more ideological base. He was
not the choice of those who wanted to see Democrats reflect the young,
multiethnic, majority-female voters driving their electoral victories.
Biden was the choice of Democrats who favored electability above all. Electability is a weird idea: It asks not that you vote for who you find most electable, but for who you think a voter who is not like you would find most electable....
For Republicans, the incentives are exactly the reverse. They can win the presidency despite getting fewer votes. They can win the Senate despite getting fewer votes. They can win the House despite getting fewer votes. They can control the balance of state legislatures despite getting fewer votes.
And so they do. Their base, like the Democratic base, would prefer to run more uncompromising candidates, and their donors would prefer a more uncompromising agenda. A party that needed to win a majority of the popular vote couldn’t indulge itself by nominating Trump and backing his erratic, outrageous, and incompetent style of governance to the hilt. A party that needed a majority of the popular vote to win the Senate and the House couldn’t keep trying to rip health care away from tens of millions of people while cutting taxes on the richest Americans.
No comments:
Post a Comment