Editors at National Review Online assess Tuesday’s presidential election result.
Donald Trump is returning to the White House, and, in the context of our evenly divided politics, in convincing fashion.
This is an extraordinary personal and political vindication for Trump, who overcame his election loss in 2020, his disgraceful conduct in the aftermath, a concerted effort to prosecute him into political oblivion, and unremittingly hostile press coverage.
Trump swept the key battleground states and is well-positioned to win the popular vote, an achievement that eluded him in 2016. This time, his coalition was broader and more diverse. Once again, he achieved crushing margins in rural areas, while narrowly winning in the suburbs and making notable inroads among Hispanic voters, African-American men, and young people. This led to gains all around the country, from suburban Virginia, to the border regions of Texas, to the Bronx.
The appeal of Trump’s working-class politics has crossed racial and ethnic lines and led to a more robustly multiracial GOP coalition. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have taken the majority with some room to spare, and the chances are good, although we may not know for weeks, that the GOP will hold the House, too.
The big night is a tribute to Trump’s compelling political persona and the acumen of his campaign, which sought out these voters and succeeded in getting them. For most Republicans, Trump’s legendary status has only grown over the last 24 hours.
It’s important to keep in mind, though, that the necessary predicate of this achievement was the failure of the Biden presidency and the lunacy of contemporary progressivism, as well as the manifest inadequacies of the incumbent’s emergency replacement as nominee, Kamala Harris. Biden promised to be a competent, normal, and unifying president, and was none of the above. He blew up the border, botched the Afghanistan withdrawal, and presided over a period of elevated inflation.
