Wanted: Trump Voter Data

By Zamboni

After more than a week, the political world is coalescing around the idea that Joe Biden has carried Arizona. FOX, of course, in a move that infuriated Benedict Donald, called it on Election Night — as did the Associated Press. Now Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report has said he's seen enough. Which means that for the first time since 1996, a Democrat has won Barry Goldwater's and John McCain's home state — and both their US Senators are Democrats, too.

Add to that Biden's 77.4 million popular vote count, and it's a pretty impressive win. We cats just knew all those people weren't standing in line to vote for Trump.

On the other hand, of course, there's that 72 million or so who, after four years of mayhem, malevolence and madness, went into the voting booth and said, "More, please." It's discouraging and alarming. But we've been giving some thought to those folks. Surely not all of them could be rabid red hats, could they? Here are some possibilities.

First, there's the simple explanation that they went with the incumbent. Even in a crazy year like 2020 — in a pandemic and with a grifter and traitor in office — incumbency is an enormous advantage. There are reasons a sitting President hasn't lost in 28 years, and they are: "name recognition, national attention, fundraising and campaign bases, control over the instruments of government, successful campaign experience...and voters' risk aversion." That last one is important: While the coronavirus hurt Trump, historians and analysts say, it also probably caused some people to want to stick "with the devil they know."

Second, it is a sad possibility that some of those Trump votes could be bigoted judgments on Kamala Harris's race and gender. Yes, people don't generally vote on the basis of the VP nominee. And anyone who did would have to be informed enough to know Biden's age and then take that one step farther — that if anything happened to him, it would be Harris stepping in. So a small slice of voters, yes. But maybe a large enough one to matter, as Sarah Palin's candidacy ended up hurting John McCain in 2008 for different reasons.

Finally, never underestimate the impact of low-information voters. While we cats (and our faithful readers) are political junkies, most Americans aren't. Millions of them headed to the polls without fully understanding the pandemic and how Trump has failed us, or that the economy was in freefall, or the grievous harm that Trump has wreaked on the government and the country. A ton of them probably don't even remember he was impeached. (It's been a busy year.) And then there was the neighbor on our local version of the "Next Door" website who asked, "Oh, are we voting for President this year?" Seriously!

We look forward to seeing some analysis on this as final votes are tallied and our fellow lefties calm down a bit. But as the days pass, Biden's landslide-y victory becomes clearer and clearer. Yes, we have a ton of work to do. But maybe the soul of America isn't terminally ill after all. We cats PURR.