"We're going to win so much. You're going to get tired of winning. You're going to say, 'Please, Mr. President, I have a headache. Please, don't win so much.'" That is what then-candidate Donald Trump told his supporters at a rally on the eve of the South Carolina primary in February 2016.
Like many things with Trump, his rhetoric bears no resemblance to the truth.
After losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, Trump won the Electoral College and, therefore, the White House in 2016 by 77,744 votes spread across three states. Put another way, Trump won the White House with fewer people than fit in many college football stadiums on Saturday afternoons.
And since that narrow victory, Republicans in the era of Trump have gone on to lose nearly every Election Day since. In 2017, Republicans lost the special election in deep-red Alabama, sending the first Democratic senator from the state in 25 years to Washington. Republicans lost the 2018 election, as Democrats had their biggest gain of seats in the House of Representatives since Watergate. And in 2019, Republicans lost again as Democrats flipped the governorship in Kentucky and won the governor's race in Louisiana—states Trump had won in 2016 by about 30 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
When you dig a little deeper, the numbers get much worse for Republicans. When Trump took office, Republicans controlled the House of Representatives 241-194; today, the Democratic majority is 232-197. When Trump took office, Republicans held the advantage in governors' seats 33-16; today, it is nearly even, at 26-24. And when Trump took office, Republicans had a 15 percent advantage in nationwide state legislative seats they held; today, that lead is down to only 5 percent.
I bet Republicans have a headache. But it is not from winning so much.
And all of that losing was before Trump was caught seeking foreign interference in our elections and the House impeached him.
This week, attention turns to the U.S. Senate and the impeachment trial that will start in earnest. Between the dizzying pace of bombshell revelations and the efforts of Trump and his allies in Congress and in conservative media to muddy the waters, the basic contours of this case easily get lost or blurred. But the facts are actually crystal clear: Trump used the powers of the presidency to solicit a foreign government to interfere in our election for his own political benefit. He then orchestrated a cover-up of his actions. And, finally, when he was caught, he obstructed the investigation.
Despite the mountain of evidence that proves the case, it is widely expected that a majority of Republicans in the Senate will join all their colleagues in the House in deciding not to hold Trump accountable for his abuses.
No matter what happens in the Senate, Trump will always be the third president in our nation's history to be impeached. But, by normalizing his abuses and his debasing of the office, Republicans are telling voters there is no action, including undermining free and fair elections in our country, that Trump could take for which they would hold him accountable.
While Republicans in Congress may fail to do their job, there are strong indications that voters will not fail to do theirs. And yet again, the Republican calculation that their loyalty to Trump will pay off in the next election will be exposed as deeply flawed, just as it has been in every election since 2016.
According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll, 70 percent of Americans think Trump's request to a foreign leader to investigate a political rival, the argument at the heart of the impeachment articles, was wrong. That is a remarkably high number. In today's highly polarized political environment, you probably can't get 70 percent of Americans to agree the sky is blue. Yet 70 percent agree that Trump's actions were wrong.
On top of that, support for impeachment and removal from office remains historically high. Fifty-two percent of Americans support removing Trump from office, according to a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll. For historical context, a Gallup poll released just days before Richard Nixon announced he would resign found that 46 percent of Americans wanted to see him removed from office.
Lastly, enter into this equation that Trump is a historically unpopular president and is the first president in modern polling to never poll above 50 percent approval.
Add it all up, and you have a historically unpopular president who has headed up historic losses for his party entering into a historically popular impeachment trial.
That is not a winning equation for Republicans.
The battle for control of the Senate this year will be fought in Maine, North Carolina, Arizona and Colorado. Since Trump took office, his net approval ratings decreased substantially in each of those states, according to Morning Consult. His approval is down by 14 percent in Maine, 18 percent in North Carolina, 23 percent in Arizona, and 19 percent in Colorado. As we enter the election year, Trump remains underwater in each of those states. Donald Trump entered the White House with virtually no ability to help down-ballot Republicans, and three years and three Election Day losses later, he has even less today.
In the past three elections, voters have soundly rejected the very thing Trump is asking Republican senators to defend—and walk the plank for—in this trial: Trumpism and the idea that he can act without accountability.
So, as senators will sit in judgment of Trump during this trial, voters will sit in judgment of them. Republicans in the House have had their say. Soon, Republicans in the Senate will have theirs. But ultimately, it will be voters who will have the final say come November.
If Republicans fail to hold Trump accountable, voters will hold them accountable.
Doug Gordon is a Democratic strategist and co-founder of UpShift Strategies who has worked on numerous federal, state and local campaigns and on Capitol Hill. He is on Twitter at @dgordon52.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
