The Comeback Begins Now! Blue Wave 2026!
Republicans are spiking the ball and claiming that Trump won an overwhelming victory and the Democrats are doomed. Many elite pundits are writing the Democrats’ political obituary. As a student of history, I can tell you that the reports of the Democrats’ political death are premature.
Trump won by 255,000 votes in the 3 blue wall states that decided the election. A swing of 128,000 votes in those states and Harris is president. Estimates have him winning under 50% of the popular vote. Trump will end up winning the popular vote by a mere 1.4%.
The 2024 election was not a landslide and was not a blowout. It was a close election. Trump’s victory in the popular vote was one of the smallest margins of victory of any President elected. In contrast, Clinton won the popular vote by 2 points in 2016.
“Trump’s popular-vote victory will likely end up as the smallest since 2000. It is due, in part, to fewer people voting. Exit polls are imperfect, but they suggest where each party gained and lost votes since 2020…What we can say, though, is that this was not an electoral landslide, but a narrowly contested race in which Trump is likely to have benefited as much from who didn’t turn out to vote for his candidacy than who did turn out to vote for him.” Phillp Bump, Washington Post.
Trump won the all important electoral vote by an underwhelming margin of 312 to 226. That victory is tied for the 44th best showing ever in the electoral college. Some mandate.
Trump’s victory was part of a global trend of incumbent parties losing post-COVID. When compared to similar elections around the world, Trump’s margin of victory was among the smallest and the least sweeping.
“Trump has now run for president three times, all in anti-incumbent environments. He won the two times that that environment was on his side, and he lost the one time he was an incumbent. We can talk about the candidates’ stances on Gaza or debate performances or ad expenditures or anything else until we’re blue in the face, but it still comes back to this basic point that the identity of the candidates probably didn’t matter all that much.” Seth Masket.
Similarly, the GOP has a very narrow margin in both houses of Congress. The Senate today consists of 52 Republicans 48 Democrats. (There is a recount occurring in Pennsylvania.) MAGA Republicans lost Senate races in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona.
The Republicans maintained their wafer thin majority in the House. That majority has been further trimmed by Trump having appointed three House Republicans to his cabinet. The GOP is on pace to have the smallest House majority at the start of a Congress since 1960. This is essentially the same GOP House majority that was dysfunctional and couldn’t get anything done without Democratic votes.
History clearly demonstrates that it is always premature to write the political obituary of a political party shortly after a disappointing defeat. No majority is ever permanent in nature. 11 out of the last 13 elections have been change elections. The party occupying the White House has changed in the last 3 elections.
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats won an epic victory. Johnson beat Goldwater 486 to 52 in the electoral college and the Democrats had 2–1 majorities in both houses of Congress.
After the Democratic landslide of 1964, the demise of the Republican Party was widely predicted by the pundits of that era. Scotty Reston of the NY Times wrote: “Barry Goldwater…has wrecked his party for a long time to come and is not even likely to control the wreckage.”
In 1966, the Republicans gained 3 Senate seats and 47 House seats and restored a conservative majority in the Congress. Nixon was elected president in 1968 and began the GOP’s dominance of the White House between 1968–88.
The pundits wrote the Republicans’ political obituary in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Jimmy Carter’s triumph in 1976. The Democrats enjoyed large majorities in both houses of Congress during the Carter Administration. The Republicans bounced back with three consecutive presidential landslides between 1980–88.
Bill Clinton and the Democrats enjoyed a trifecta between 1992–94. The Democratic majorities evaporated in the Republican wave election of 1994. The Democrats lost long held majorities in both houses of Congress.
George W. Bush and the GOP won a narrow victory at all levels in the 2004 elections. Bush and the mainstream press proclaimed a “permanent GOP governing majority.” That illusion was destroyed in New Orleans and the sands of Iraq.
After the collapse of the Bush presidency, the Democrats won wave elections in 2006 and 2008. By 2009, the Democrats held the White House and had large majorities in both houses of Congress. For a brief period of time, the Democrats had a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate.
The Republicans on the Supreme Court sparked the GOP comeback with the Citizens United “legislation” in 2010. That opened the floodgates to oceans of billionaire right wing money. The Democrats lost control of the House in 2010 and lost a majority in the Senate in 2014. By 2016, the Republicans had regained the trifecta.
That period of Republican dominance was short lived. Trump was always unpopular and his approval ratings hovered around the low to mid 40s. Trump was the first president to lose control of the White House and Congress in one term since Hoover.
The Democrats narrowly lost control of the House in 2022 but surprisingly maintained Senate control. However, the Republicans regained control of all of the branches with their narrow win in 2024.
Trump is already making the classic mistake of misreading his imaginary “mandate” and overplaying his hand. His nominations of Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy, Junior portend an extreme agenda. It’s just a matter of time until the soft Trump supporters, swing voters and independents regret their votes. It happened during Trump’s first term.
“Once again, a victorious party is sticking its head in the mandate trap. In the 21st century, presidents win elections because their opponents were unpopular, and then — imagining the public has endorsed their party activists’ agenda — they use the power of their office to make themselves unpopular.” Jonah Goldberg
Trump’s policies of high tariffs, massive deficits, deficit funded tax cuts for the rich and mass deportation are unpopular and will backfire. I expect a replay of Trump’s first term. The Democrats will be back. It’s just a matter of time. Work hard to make it a reality.
We can begin our comeback by winning the municipal elections in Lincoln and Omaha in 2025. Organize! Vote!
Sources consulted:
What the numbers actually say about the 2024 election.
On The Power of Networks With Joe Trippi
Beware the Mandate Trap
GOP and Dems Are Both Reaching Erroneous Conclusions From 2024