How presidential elections work

Very few signals and a whole lot of noise

The Democrats are in deep trouble. Their brand is in tatters. Their standing has never been lower. The threats they face are existential. If they don’t fundamentally change it’s game over. The sky is falling. The end is near. Whatever shall we do?

You’ve probably been hearing and reading a lot of that since November. Odds are you will continue to see plenty of those takes for some time and maybe well into 2028. Even if Democrats kill it in the midterms, those elections tend to be forgotten fairly quickly. Within a matter of weeks, there will be hot takes downplaying its importance and insisting everything is still awful.

I never rule anything out, but, as the name of this newsletter says, I like to serve my takes cold. That doesn’t mean I’m always going to go against the grain. I do that a lot when it comes to election-related topics, but that’s mostly because those in the politics business tend to have a short memory and very different incentives than I do. If you’re writing columns regularly or you routinely appear on TV, your incentive is to say something new or attention getting each time so you don’t commit the cardinal sin of being boring. It’s one of many reasons why, with apologies to David Byrne, I have no future as a talking head.

It certainly doesn’t help that there is high demand for negativity no matter what the subject is. I think it’s very unhealthy, but a lot of people like to doomscroll and make themselves miserable. We all have to occupy our time somehow, but, giving my two cents, I really don’t recommend doing that.

I don’t get paid to write any of this and you’re not going to find me on TV or writing in a national newspaper. The upside to that is I’m not under the kind of pressure that many in the politics business are. What I try to do is keep readers grounded and think beyond the immediate moment. Just as equally, I try to give readers some historical perspective and put things in a broader context. That’s why, unlike many others in the politics business, I don’t believe any of the doomerism about Democrats and their electoral future.

That doesn’t mean I think everything is great. Trump is president again. That alone makes things very bad. As I have been writing about regularly since he was sworn in, things are bleak here and especially abroad. I’m very worried about where the US is headed, particularly as it pertains to our competition with China. I have all kinds of opinions on that, but it’s not my area of expertise. The one thing I know very well is US elections and on that front things look pretty good, at least from my standpoint as a committed Democrat.

I’m not always going to say Democrats are fine. If I ever think panic is warranted, believe me, I will say so. I’m not going to tell you it’s 70 degrees and sunny outside when it’s freezing cold and pouring rain. Luckily in US electoral politics, especially this day and age, panic is seldom warranted. Looking back over the last 50+ years, with 20/20 hindsight, there was never a period where panicking was the right response.

Anything is possible, but I doubt panicking will be necessary any time soon. I focus on national elections, but here I’m going to focus specifically on presidential elections. I’ve mentioned this before, but can’t emphasize it enough: each cycle is different from the one before. Often times, there are things that are a huge deal in one cycle but weren’t at all an issue in the previous one. That’s happened a lot since 2000.

In 2004, we had the war on terror and the war in Iraq. It was the last election we’ve had where foreign policy was a major issue. In 2000, foreign policy was background noise at most. There was little to no talk about terrorism and nobody was thinking about invading Iraq.

By the time people started voting in 2008, the economy had fallen off a cliff. The economy in 2004 wasn’t spectacular, but it was hardly catastrophic and very few people anticipated a global financial crisis right up until it happened. In 2020, we had a pandemic, which quickly became the dominant issue, but it was on nobody’s agenda in 2016. Last year, inflation was the biggest issue, but not something anyone was worried about four years earlier.

There’s a good chance something very few people are talking about today will happen between now and 2028 and become a big issue. It may even become the big issue. I don’t know what that might be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.¹

In large part because of changes in the dominant issue(s) each cycle, looking back at what happened in the last election only does so much good. That’s why I don’t put any stock in hot takes claiming Democrats have to fundamentally change to win again. Those are almost always based entirely off of the election last year.

I discussed the report from Catalist last week. The data it produces is excellent and arguably the best of its kind. I have nothing but respect for those who work on it and they do us all a great service. That said, its value going forward is limited and it may be entirely obsolete by 2028.

An additional twist is even if an issue(s) is the same, it can go from being an advantage for a party in one cycle to being a disadvantage for it in the next. For example, in 2004 the war in Iraq was an advantage for Republicans. In 2008, it had gone south and it became a disadvantage for them. Inflation was an advantage for Republicans last year, but if it’s still an issue in 2028 it will be a disadvantage.

What’s actually important

When it comes to presidential elections, only a handful of things truly matter. One is the dominant issue(s) of the cycle. Another is the quality of the candidates running. Another is whether one party has been in the White House for eight years.² There always are a few other things that can matter at the margins, but those three things matter the most by far.

There are a lot of things that get plenty of hype, but I think are way overrated or even useless. Campaigns are one example. The best thing campaigns can do is raise money to run ads that are effective. Almost everything else is of little to no value. Door knocking, phone banking and get out the vote efforts do almost nothing. Campaign strategists can be good for helping a candidate amplify their strengths and improve on their weaknesses, but otherwise don’t matter. Candidates who are high quality tend to run good campaigns, but the former is the cause and the latter is the effect.

When it comes to candidate quality versus campaign structure and staff, the 2016 election is the best example of how much more important the former is. Both candidates were very bad and unpopular, but one was a candidate without a campaign and the other was a campaign without a candidate. If campaigns were of huge importance, Trump would have lost all 50 states. Clinton’s campaign had everything both of Obama’s campaigns had except the most important ingredient, a good candidate. Trump only had a shell of a campaign, but he didn’t need it. He was able to generate non-stop media coverage and create enthusiasm among his supporters, which more than compensated for that.

Another example is Biden in the 2020 primary. His campaign was running on a shoestring budget with very few staffers and it had no presence in many states. Despite that, he wound up winning the nomination easily. Lots of the other candidates running had sophisticated campaign operations and more money, but they went nowhere. His being Obama’s VP compensated for everything else he lacked.

This day and age, presidential nominees of both parties get plenty of media coverage and have plenty of money. Polarization is very high and candidate quality can make a lot of difference even if someone comes up short. Harris was not a great candidate, but she was much better than Biden. Even though she lost, she made it close when odds are he would have lost by a lot more and taken down a lot of other Democrats with him.

When looking at why someone lost a presidential election, never underestimate the explanatory power of “shit happens.” That sounds like excuse making and it can be used that way, but it doesn’t have to be and it has a lot of validity. In 2024, incumbent parties all over the world struggled. Harris had the misfortune of being the VP of a very unpopular president. Even if some other Democrat had been nominated, Biden’s unpopularity was going to weigh them down. It’s possible they could have won, but it was going to be dog fight. Anyone who tells you some other Democrat would have won in a landslide is saying don’t ever listen to them on that subject.

There is a debate over how much Biden’s policies contributed to inflation. What nobody disputes is that inflation was going to be a problem no matter what. It was going to happen on his watch no matter what he did and he was going to be unpopular for it. That was going to make his reelection chances a lot tougher even if he was in perfect health and did everything right.

People were mad about inflation in 2024 and took it out on the incumbent party. Democrats had the misfortune of being the incumbent party. That doesn’t absolve Biden, Harris and others of mistakes they made and it doesn’t mean nothing should change going forward. What it does mean is let’s not overthink things and fight the last battle.

An even better example of “shit happens” is 2008. It wasn’t McCain’s fault that Bush was toxic. He also had the misfortune of running after Republicans had been in the White House for eight years. What ultimately killed his chances was the financial crisis, which he had nothing to do with. On Earth 2, where he beats Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000, he probably wins by a decent margin against Gore and gets reelected. Timing can be everything.

Bush Sr. had some similar misfortunes. A recession happened on his watch, which he had no control over. On top of that, Republicans had been in the White House for twelve years and had worn out their welcome. It didn’t help that he had a much younger and charismatic opponent.

In looking at presidential election outcomes, it’s possible to under analyze things, but the mistake those in the politics business make far more frequently is to over analyze things. When you look beyond the most fundamental factors, you risk falling victim to creating a self-serving narrative about what should have been done and what should be done going forward. When looking at the 2024 outcome, for example, inflation is the dominant factor by far. Everything else only mattered at the margins, if at all.

When you hear people asserting other things were decisive, watch out. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, those in the politics business are a small number of very engaged, very online people. A vast majority of them live in a few small parts of a few cities. There are things in those areas that are big deals there, but are not issues everywhere else. For example, when you hear someone say swing voters in Wisconsin voted for Trump because of something dumb that happened in DC or New York, where they live, that should set off alarm bells in your head. If someone tells you that in person, guide them to the nearest grass and tell them to touch it.

The flipside of explaining a presidential election loss with “shit happens” is you can just as easily explain a win with good fortune. Trump is a great example of that. He’s a terrible candidate, but he’s been very lucky. In 2016, Democrats had been the party in the White House for eight years. That alone would have given any Republican nominee a major boost. Making things easier was that Clinton was very unpopular and shot herself in the foot every chance she got. To top it off, he got a last minute, likely game changing assist from James Comey.

In 2024, Trump got to run against inflation and promised to lower prices. It didn’t matter that he was going to make the problem worse. A significant number of voters remembered his presidency as being a time when the economy was good and prices were lower. Those voters tended to be very disengaged from politics and, for many of them, their analysis was as simple as “Things were better when he was in charge so I’m voting for him again.” You can throw all the facts you want at people like that, but it won’t matter. They’re called disengaged for a reason.

Arguably the best example of benefitting from good fortune is Reagan. He had the good luck of running as a challenger in 1980, which was a terrible year to be an incumbent. Four years later, he got to run as an incumbent when it was a great year to be one. He first ran in 1976 against Ford in the primary and nearly won. Had he been nominated, he might have lost to Carter or, had he won, he would have been stuck presiding over stagflation and giving a malaise speech. That is the best example there is of winning by losing.

Obama is also a good example. The problems that plagued McCain all worked to his advantage. It certainly helped that he was an extraordinarily good candidate, but he was also at the right place at the right time. It helped, too, that because of his charisma and personality, he had a large fanatical following.

A lot of people got carried away by his wins. Many thought it was Democrats becoming the dominant party for decades. In reality, it was a much simpler affair. Obama had a strong appeal that was unique to him. He was very popular with key voting groups, but it was him who was popular, not the Democratic Party or anyone else. We don’t know what the future holds, but I strongly suspect that is also true about Trump’s appeal.

Demographic fool’s gold

After Obama was reelected, it was thought by many that Democrats had demographics on their side. Republicans were in deep trouble. They were staring at an abyss. Their relevance was quickly fading. Both Democrats and Republicans believed that, albeit for very different reasons.

Twelve years later, we’re having that same discussion, but now it’s Democrats who are reeling. Trump made big inroads with young and non-white voters. They were supposed to be Democrats forever. Trump has assembled a multiracial working-class coalition that will dominate for a long time to come.

Spoiler alert, that idea was wrong in 2013 and it’s wrong now. It’s true that in the future there will be more non-white people voting Republican. It’s also true that there will be more white people voting Democratic. Harris struggled with many kinds of voters, but white voters only shifted slightly towards Trump. That’s very impressive considering how unfavorable of a cycle it was for Democrats.

In the future, Democrats will have much better cycles and it’s entirely possible white voters will shift significantly towards them. It’s also possible, if not likely, that there will be some reversion among non-white voters back towards them. What you have to remember is Trump did much better last year with disengaged voters. Non-whites and young people are overrepresented among disengaged voters so it makes sense that he did better with them.

The thing about disengaged voters, though, is that because they pay little attention to politics, they have no strongly held beliefs or party loyalty. In one cycle, they can vote for a Republican and in the next they can vote for a Democrat. It really depends on bigger forces at play.

Believing your party is going to be dominant because of demographics is not just factually inaccurate. It is a great way to overreach and provoke a backlash. Beginning in Obama’s second term, I think many Democratic Party actors got it in their heads that because they were destined to be the majority party, they could move further to the left and not face any consequences. The huge influence left-wing advocacy groups have gained over the last decade has many causes and I’m sure that belief was one of them.

As it turns out, gravity still exists. Moving too far leftward does have consequences. Issues that were thought to be of paramount importance to particular groups turned out not to be. In the case of immigration, Hispanic voters not only don’t prioritize it above all else, but many of them are in favor of limits on it and don’t like having tons of people flocking here at once. In the case of black voters, they don’t want to get rid of police and aren’t obsessed with reparations. Let’s not even go there with the “inclusive” language the left-wing advocacy world helped spread.

It now looks like some Republican Party actors are making the same error. The inroads Trump made with previously Democratic groups is a realignment. Many of those voters are now permanently Republicans. Combine that with the gains Trump made with non-college educated whites and you have an emerging Republican majority.

We’ll see what happens, but call me highly skeptical of that. If the economy goes south and Trump’s popularity tanks, Republicans will see a big erosion in support from those groups.³ If he kicks millions of people off of Medicaid and SNAP, there will likely be a backlash from some of his new supporters, which will open a door for Democrats. Those are just the most obvious ways Republican gains can come undone. Odds are other things will happen in the future that will scramble the electoral landscape in all kinds of ways.

While my focus here is on presidential elections, don’t forget about midterms. Maintaining a durable national majority requires doing well in both kinds of elections. The problem with the coalition Trump has put together is it’s heavily dependent on people who only vote in presidential elections. The Obama coalition had that same problem. Just as the Obama coalition didn’t give Democrats a lasting majority, the Trump coalition is unlikely to give Republicans one.

Something else to remember about presidential elections and demographics is that the problems a party has are often cycle and candidate specific. Since the election last year, there has been a lot of talk and now some concerted efforts among Democratic Party actors and organizations to reach out to young men. That was a group Trump made big inroads with.

It’s not an invalid concern, but efforts to try to fix it are unlikely to make much of a difference. There has been talk about trying to create a liberal Joe Rogan to counter his influence. I really hope that was just a trial balloon that’s been popped. Anyone who thinks that can happen fundamentally misunderstands what makes Rogan and others like him popular.

Rogan is not really a political person. He has become more so lately, but that’s very recent. His podcast has been around for a long time and he has built up a big following. That’s largely because he talks about all kinds of things men tend to like, which includes everything from sports to comedy. His popularity is organic. He was not created in a lab by a billionaire, corporation or political party.

Rogan is not a policy expert, but he does have left-leaning views on many issues. He tends to like political figures who are outsiders such as Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders. His affinity for Trump follows that same path.

The key for Democrats to reach young men and other groups like that is to just be willing to interact with more people who have them as an audience. That’s already beginning to happen. Pete Buttigieg recently went on a podcast associated with the “manosphere” and had a great time.

Come 2028, I have no doubt plenty of Democratic candidates will do that. What often happens is a successful presidential candidate pioneers a new medium and others learn from it. Obama was the first presidential candidate to take advantage of Facebook. Trump used social media with great effect and took advantage of the popularity of podcasts to reach an audience.

In the 2020 cycle, unfortunately, the cultural left’s influence was at its peak. Many Democratic candidates shunned controversial people out of fear of being attacked by the purity police. Bernie Sanders went on Rogan’s podcast in 2019 and was vilified by woke activists for it. The good news is that crazy time is over. If Democratic candidates in 2028 talk to Rogan and others like him, nobody relevant is going to complain.

Party actors don’t like to lose elections. If they think they need to make adjustments to win again they will do it. Come 2028, if the Democratic nominee believes their party went too far leftward on some issues, they will move towards the center. If they believe they need to use different tactics and have a different strategy, they will do that, too. If Democrats lose in 2028, two losses in a row tends to drive home the need for some kind of change. If the message isn’t received in 2028, it’s likely to by 2032.

1. If I had to make a guess, I would say it’s AI and its effects on the economy and other aspects of life. AI is something I would like to write about, but I know so little about it and don’t think I have anything to add to the discussion right now. I’m heavily inclined towards favoring technological advancements so as long as AI isn’t going to be Skynet I’m probably all for it.

2. Since the 22^nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, a party has only won the White House three times in a row once. It’s a small sample size, but, historically, being in the White House for eight years counts heavily against you on the third try.

3. He’s already very unpopular among the youngest voters.