In This Story
We asked the Schar School of Policy and Government faculty to provide insight as to the results of the November 5 elections. Here is a sampling. Dean Mark J. Rozell moderates a panel discussion with faculty members and former governor Terry McAuliffe Monday, November 11, at 6 p.m., at George Mason University’s Mason Square Van Metre Hall. Admission is free and pizza will be served. Register for the 2024 Presidential Election Debrief here.
With his reelection as president, Donald Trump inherits the Russia-Ukraine war and what to do about it. Although Trump has boasted that he will somehow be able to resolve it in a day, this is rather doubtful. While Trump may be willing to see Ukraine surrender the territory in its east that Russian forces are now occupying, Trump probably does not want to see Ukraine fall altogether on his watch like Afghanistan did on Biden's. Nor is Putin likely to scale back his own ambitions in Ukraine just because Trump replaces Biden in the White House. However much Trump dislikes Joe Biden as well as Ukrainian President Zelensky, Trump may find it expedient to continue U.S. military support for Ukraine for fear of looking "weak" if he does not. And Trump does not want to look weak.
Careful analysis of this election will take time; however, looking at the general trends and putting them in context with what we’ve seen elsewhere in the world, we can tentatively conclude that it is very difficult for unpopular incumbent parties to get reelected following massive economic crises, like inflation. In 2020, as a challenger to the incumbent, Biden arguably benefited from pandemic-induced high inflation. In 2024, despite having brought inflation down and overseeing a growing economy the last few years, voters in the United States and elsewhere associate negative economic conditions like inflation with political incumbents. The Democrats paid the price for having been in power during an inflationary period, and arguably did much better in the election than they would have when they dumped their wildly unpopular incumbent for a slightly more popular alternative, but it was not enough to overcome voters’ frustration with their prospects.
I agree with Professor Victor that it is "difficult for unpopular incumbent parties to get reelected following massive economic crises." That said, the Democrats' challenge extends beyond incumbency. Democrats lost touch with struggling Americans. Trump's economic proposals, the Democrats are right, may not help and may even hurt struggling Americans. But the Democrats failed, repeatedly, to articulate an alternative vision that might reassure Americans that food, housing, and education might one day be affordable. In this election a vision, even a deeply flawed vision, proved more compelling than admonitions that a vote for Trump is a vote for autocracy.
Once again, the polls missed the mark. Harris faced a strong rejection from working-class Americans across all races. The biggest surprise? Both Latinos and white women prioritized their pocketbooks and family economic responsibilities over other issues. It’s Inflation Stupid—the economy, not ideology, drove their votes.
I believe the motivation for initial changes will be revenge on (foreign) political enemies. First, change will include more aggressive support for Israel in its war against Iran. Earlier this fall, there were reports that Iran threatened to assassinate Trump. He will want to punish Iran early on in his administration. Second, he will undermine Ukraine and United States-led NATO support for the Ukrainians. Pushing Ukraine to compromise with Russia (on Russian terms) and ending NATO support will serve the dual purpose of giving the Biden administration a black eye and weakening the NATO alliance made up of countries who Trump believes are his enemies and rely on the United States for their defense. Third, he will reverse U.S. support (since the end of WWII) for a liberal international order based on democratic principles and human rights (including freedom of expression) and an open global trading system. In its place will be transactional support for illiberal democracies like Hungary, dismantling multilateral institutions, and using tariffs to punish countries that do not conform to his protectionist trade agenda.
If the Trump administration has both houses of Congress on its side, we could possibly see new efforts to expand privatization of federal activities. Maybe not as proportionately as large a shift in the 1980s and 1990s. If Mr. Trump’s appointees decide to shift agency activities away from the D.C. region, such as what we saw with some small entities in the Department of Agriculture in his first term, when combined with new privatization, we could see a dramatic downward shift in total federal employment in this region. To the extent that privatized activities remain in the region, the total impact on the local economy will be muted, but there is no guarantee those jobs would remain here.
In a way, it’s all Joe Biden’s fault. If he hadn’t run again, the Democrats would have had an open primary. In that contest, they could have picked someone who stacked up better against Trump. Ironically enough, one of the reasons smart Democrats gave for sticking with Biden was that, if they had an open primary, they might end up with Harris, a Black woman, the sitting the VP, would be hard to deny the nomination. I don’t buy that. The party in 2020 showed itself to be remarkably pragmatic in choosing Joe Biden, the best person to run against Trump then. Given how poorly Harris was polling against Trump (even back then, she was one of the few doing worse than Biden in some surveys), I doubt they would have picked her. They would have ended up with Shapiro, or Whitmer, or some other swing state name.
But it is also Harris’s fault. She’s run well in California, and failed when she tried to go beyond those borders. She’s not a great campaigner, although the convention was exceptional, and so was her speech. But her statement that she couldn’t think of anything she would do differently than Biden was a disastrous gaffe…Harris needed to find a way to separate herself from the radical fringes of the transgender movement, as Clinton did with Black nationalism. She also needed to be as smart as Obama in 2008 and 2012, when he OPPOSED gay marriage. He was probably for it; it was a justice and equality issue rising in the nation. But he wanted to win…A couple of smart, moderating identity politics stands, and maybe Harris doesn’t get beaten quite so badly. She might even have won.