If Donald Trump's 2024 triumph wasn't a "landslide", what exactly would it be called?
How big was it, really?
Thankfully, Trump did win, sparing most responsible Americans from the hard contemplative task of considering whether to continue to battle the onslaught of the "woke" left or whether to simply pack it in, embark on a long isolation holiday and figure out what non-politics activities to concentrate on for the foreseeable future.
But could we truly extrapolate lasting realization from what happened this year?
Like Young alludes to, Democrats and Trump's GOP establishment enemies – you know who you are – are most terrified that the 2016 and 2024 winner has discovered the "secret" to sustainable ballot box longevity. Almost as though Trump and his backers have found the waters from the fountain of youth or the elusive cure for every terminal disease known to twenty-first century mankind, the boobirds can't stomach the probability that Trump did indeed achieve the nearly-impossible (particularly for Republicans in today's politics) landslide win that the media folks-in-the-know wouldn't even talk about prior to November 5th.
Trump did indeed latch onto a winning combination of issues, and, through about a decade's practice doing interviews, answering media queries, getting into verbal scraps with "fake news" media members and touring the country delivering rally speeches to mass audiences, he honed a pretty solid political machine that runs on perpetual human energy and could possibly win another election today if need be.
The "secret" for Trump was out in 2024. But, as some folks I know have pointed out, his supposed "coattails" were limited.
A landslide? Maybe. But how about a wave and coattails?
From one observer I communicate with regularly and whose opinion I respect:
"As much as this was a 'Hewwge' victory, it was not the wave election we really needed to have more lasting change. The US Senate result was +4, but it was bound to change with the Dems defending 23 seats. WV was a layup. MT was a short jump shot. OH is amazingly red for its rust belt location. PA was a nice pickup. Trump did not have coattails in NV, AZ, WI, and MI that would have made a wave. Bummer! The map is flipped in '26, which could mean trouble ahead.
"The US House? R's -1. This is kind of ugly. I think a large part of it is big state gerrymanders, I mean CA and NY are a joke, but petty R House infighting left a bad taste, and I have to believe that this is where some ground game issues hurt."
This is certainly an insightful analysis, though, as I told him in my reply, that it discounts the impressiveness of what Trump pulled off this year. Yes, Republicans fell short of where they'd hoped to be in the congressional totals, but Trump's final numbers outperformed every single Republican senate candidate. That's no small feat.
And the value of incumbency shouldn't be dismissed, either. Taking on and defeating Democrat incumbents in "swing states" where the margins were bound to be close is a daunting challenge. Incumbents in Nevada and Wisconsin (and open seat incumbent party D's in MI and AZ) started out with tremendous advantages. Republicans finally managed to bump off a sitting senator in Pennsylvania, but the Trump side scrapped and clawed for every vote there.
The House? Who can explain the tally, other than the Democrats' money advantage had to show up somewhere. Republicans haven't discovered the "secret" on the micro level, that's for sure.
Does this portend Republican gains going forward?
Analysts and historians have a few years to debate the lasting impact of Donald Trump on the American national political scene, and the events of the next few years will have a lot to say as to how permanent Trump's MAGA coalition really is – or if Trump's 2024 coalition unravels similar to the way Ronald Reagan's did after he left office.
Long term political achievement is fleeting and voters – or the middle 20 percent or so that is open to changing their minds – don't value loyalty to a movement as much as they do to a person.
Time will reveal how long the 2024 electorate actually lasts – and if 2024 really was a "landslide". Either way, the work is just beginning. Something to think about as the holidays provide a break from the usual back-and-forth.
