With Respect To The Nov 2020 Presidential Election I've Had This Question.......

[global1]

Sure Tr**p got a lot of votes - but wasn't able to beat Biden.

How many of those people that voted for President voted specifically for Tr**p and how many of those people that voted for President - voted for the Republican candidate?

Meaning - I believe any Repug that would have been the Repug candidate running in the Nov 2020 election would have gotten the same amount of votes - just because they were a Repug.

Repugs vote for Repugs and against the Dem. Many voted for Tr**p by holding their nose because they didn't want a Dem President.

I'm thinking that the support that Tr**p thinks he has - is really not as strong as he has led people and his Party to believe.

Sure there are Tr**p cultists out there - but I don't think that there are as many as we're led to believe there are.

The Repugs in the House and Senate are being conned by Tr**p. He's got them believing that he is the leader of the Party when he really is just faking it and letting them believe that.

I'm curious to hear others thoughts on this.

[doc03]

1. I don't think Trump made a damn bit of difference

Republicans will fall in behind anyone when it comes to the general election. We always have to deal with a couple of ours that hold up everything. Then come election time we get voted out for not doing enough.

[FoxNewsSucks]

2. MF45 probably broke even

For every crazy redhat nutbag he got, he lost a "reasonable" republicon or independent.

[USAFRetired_Liberal]

3. This is so true

I remember during the 2016 Republican primary I went to dinner with about 8 work colleagues (unfortunately all Republican due to my job)....they were all dogging Trump and hated him, everything out of their mouths was despise for Trump....then it became quiet and one of them said he was better than Hillary and Obama though, and they all agreed....to your point that it’s really all about the R so I don’t know why elected Republicans just won’t let him go, their voters aren’t going anywhere

[TheFarseer]

4. I think

A large number of people love Trump and a large number of people hate Democrats enough that they voted for Trump. I’m not sure which group is larger but they are both substantial.

[USAFRetired_Liberal]

5. I would say that most of the people in these two groups are the same

These are the same people who were the tea party during Obama and also loved GWB when he was POTUS

[Bayard]

6. Notice that rethugs are only screaming fraud about the presidential vote

Not a word about the down votes on the ballots.

[UTUSN]

7. When a Repuke incumbent is extra atrocious, it's a gold ticket for about *any* long shot Dem.

I.e., W. Shrub and Drumpf. OBAMA saw the opening and came out of nowhere to take it from the all around sure thing (Hillary), with his only few Senate background and being a minority. And BIDEN, despite his own handicaps of age and also-ran history, took it (I believe: ) because Drumpf was *SO* atrocious that it was the golden ticket. If it had been a fairly run-of-the-mill Repuke (are there any?), the turnout (for both) would have been less and perhaps touch and go.

[ScratchCat]

8. Exit polls gave insight

Exit polls only get talked about for a few hours on election day for obvious reasons, but I remember in November there being some interesting results. It was clear more than half of Republican voters were voting GOP and not Trump. When you consider all the other poll questions and "man on the street" interviews, it seemed like the backlash to the Summer's racial narrative was the reason they voted for Trump anyway.

Trump's support is less than 15% of the country. The MSM has, for five years, pretended it is larger to make Trump a story. For the life of me, I can't see why the GOP wont just move on. The only thing I can imagine is that McCarthy and McConnell *know* criminal charges are coming so they see no reason to rock the boat and piss of his cultists when things will work themselves out "naturally".

[ProfessorGAC]

11. +1

Very well said.
I estimate 17-18%, not 15.
But, those are close enough to say we've reached the same conclusion.

[Amishman]

9. Comparing presidential margins to those of other major races, Trump underperformed

Not everywhere, but overall the Republicans did better down ballot than they did at the top. This is why we picked up fewer senate seats than expected, and lost ground in the House.

[iemanja]

10. The love for Trump is a real thing

That's why the GOP is bending over backwards to accommodate him. If he didn't matter, they wouldn't be prostituting themselves for him.

[ProfessorGAC]

12. 17-18% Base

But, with only around 24% self-identifying as R, it's a huge piece of their voting bloc.
Even if we go by House vote totals, Rs got a little over 40% of all votes.
17.5% is 44% of their voters.
They're terrified to alienate the treason bloc.

[lame54]

17. Earlier report claimed...

They've been hiding results of inner-polling from their own party members

[Whiskeytide]

13. I've posted this before. In 2016, new voter ...

... registrations were up significantly in red states. Some counties - like Shelby, Baldwin and Autauga here in Alabama - set records. These are HEAVILY red, mostly rural areas of the state.

Normally new voter registrations are good for Dems. Not that time, though. These were previously disinterested/uninvolved/disengaged assholes who WANTED very much to vote for Тяцмр because he reflected their asshole attitudes about politics and the deep state. Like the Qanon Shaman’s attorney said (poorly), many of these were damaged people.

That was Тяцмр‘s ace in the hole. He swelled republican registrations because he ADDED the assholes to the already existing base of republican voters, and he didn’t do quite enough (in 2016) to run off much of the traditional base. I really don’t think HRC’s strategists realized this - or if they did, they didn’t have a countermeasure.

By 2020, however, he had disappointed/disgusted enough of the old style republicans that the new assholes couldn’t make up the difference. That, plus the strong anti-Тяцмр sentiment among Dems and many independents, carried the election for Biden. But it was CLOSE. Very close.

Now the mystery is whether these new asshole republicans will continue voting for republicans, or if they were a one-off for Тяцмр alone. Will they come out for a Тяцмр surrogate, or will they shrink back into the rural backwoods? Тяцмр Certainly benefited from them, but does he actually CONTROL them?

I really don’t think anyone knows the answer to those questions yet, but they have the Republican Party in disarray trying to figure it out. To Тяцмр or not to Тяцмр, that is their question.

[Kaleva]

15. it's registrations in battle ground stated that matter

big turnouts for Trump in safe red states doesn't do him any good

[Whiskeytide]

16. True. But what I said back at the time was that ...

... if it was happening in red states on such a large scale, it was happening everywhere to some extent. It certainly wasn’t the only thing that impacted 2016, but it had an effect.

I think it explains a lot. Conventional wisdom blew up in 2016. I think it had a lot to do with having a big number of new players in the game that no one had taken into account.

[Caliman73]

14. I don't think they are being "conned". They are willingly following.

I think that you have to understand the ideology the drives Republicans at this time in history, and since the "Reagan Revolution". Conservatism. Conservatism is about hierarchy and power. It is about preserving "the status quo", even if that status quo is not specifically defined. For American conservatives it is typically tied up in Nativism, Nationalism, Christian Dominionism, Masculinity, and Whiteness. The reason why GW Bush put on the flight suit, and stood on the rubble of the WTC with the bullhorn shouting at the terrorists. The spectacle of power is important to the conservative because they do not operate out of "love" as another poster put it. They operate out of fear. They need to be reassured by a strong authority, so that they can make sense out of their world. They hate operating in the gray. Therefore, Republicans will follow a strong leader, even if that leader is a "bad leader".

We see Trump as a weak, wounded man baby. He is a bully coward. Those on the right don't see the weak or the coward, they see a blustering guy who calls countries "shitholes" and threatens. They see it as strength. Republicans as a party, have for decades tried to stoke those fears, resentment, and bluster but in a less overt way so as not to have to openly court White supremacists and radical evangelicals. Trump blew the lid off of that so they are kind of stuck with him. They have to follow, until a stronger leader, maybe a better, more polished authoritarian comes along to lead.

This is about conservatism and where it is headed more than about Trump or the Republican Party.