This week, 2020, and beyond

This week's election results look very good.  Republicans swept from power in Virginia, a Democratic governor in Kentucky, substantial shifts in the suburbs of Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and even in Mississippi our candidate for governor lost by less than six points.

These outcomes are very encouraging for next year.  They also offer some useful lessons.  Three points in particular stand out.

1)  Narrow wins aren't good enough.  The Republicans will try to steal any election where the margin is small enough to give them a chance at doing so, and I don't just mean before-the-fact by tactics like suppressing the minority vote.  Because Beshear's margin of victory in Kentucky was only 5,000 votes, they're already exploring possible tactics for overturning the result.

They will do the same next year if our presidential candidate's win is narrow, not just nationally but in any individual state.  Even if the margin nationally is large, if the Electoral College result comes down to narrow Democratic wins in a few swing states (where our current polling margins are small), Republicans are likely to try to reverse or sabotage those outcomes.  And their efforts might win support at the Supreme Court, if the fight goes there, since the stakes are very high for the Court's conservatives -- a Democratic president and Congress might expand the Court, weakening those conservatives' power.  We need big enough wins in the swing states to avoid this scenario.

The same applies to Senate races.  If we don't win the Senate, the Republicans can still obstruct most efforts to undo the damage Trump did and move forward.  The future of the country could come down to one or two close Senate races in states like Arizona or Iowa.  Again, the wider the margin of victory in those states, the less the chance of Republicans challenging the outcome.

2)  It's not just about the presidency.  In Kentucky, Beshear won due in part to Bevin's personal unpopularity, but Republicans won every other state-wide race.  Trump too is personally unpopular, but if we defeat him solely on that basis, Republicans might still perform strongly elsewhere.  We'll need a Democratic Senate, and control of as many state legislatures as possible to thwart gerrymandering after the 2020 census.

In fact, we'll need more than a slight majority in the Senate.  If the filibuster isn't abolished, not much will get done, and several Democratic senators have already come out against abolishing the filibuster.  This is not an argument for abandoning conservative Democrats -- it's always better for a seat to be held by a conservative Democrat, who will vote the wrong way on some things, than by a Republican, who will vote the wrong way on everything.  And we'll have a better chance of persuading these Democrats to change their minds on the filibuster than of persuading Republicans to do so.  But the bigger the majority in the Senate, the better the odds.

This is relevant to the old debate about whether it's better to win by appealing to voters in the center or by boosting turnout in our own base.  Centrists and moderate Republicans who want to repudiate Trump are more likely to ticket-split, voting for a Democratic president but also for Republicans at lower levels as a check on that president's policies (since they're voting for the Democrat not because they like those policies, but just to get rid of Trump).  Democratic base voters turned out by GOTV efforts are more likely to vote Democratic at all levels.

3)  Future elections matter too.  The fight doesn't end when Trump leaves office. A new president's party usually loses seats in Congress in the following midterm.  A loss of either the House or Senate in 2022 would enable the Republicans to resume obstructing and sabotaging everything, and their efforts would be even more nihilistic and destructive since they wouldn't need to worry about undermining a Republican president.  The party will need to deliver on popular promises, such as a public option, during 2021 and 2022.  Pushing unpopular policies like abolishing private insurance is likely to result in massive repudiation in 2022 (yes, in the long run it would benefit the country, but it's unpopular now and there won't be time before 2022 for the benefits to become apparent to the average voter).

Next year's running-mate choice will matter.  Given that our most likely nominees (Biden, Warren, and Sanders) are all in their seventies, there's a non-trivial chance that the person chosen as vice-president will be the incumbent running for re-election in 2024.

Running on "Trump is a terrible person" may be enough in 2020 (though it wasn't in 2016), but in 2022 and 2024 Trump won't be on the ballot.  A massive Republican defeat next year will most likely set them at each other's throats for a while, but it's possible that they'll get their act together, adopt a moderate façade, and pose a real threat again.  Getting rid of Trump really is the top priority next year, but the more we give people something to vote for as well, the more lasting the win will be.