Why were there so many extremely close elections in the 2000s?

[Agonized-Statism]

Peak neoliberalism and the authoritarianism of the War on Terror narrowing the scope of political debate, as well as a computer-driven shift in electoral tactics toward microtargeting. The latter, coined in 2002 by political consultant Alexander Gage, played a big part in strengthening and stabilizing partisan affiliation, which turned elections into battles of inches over swing states/provinces.

By the 2000s, the international left had almost universally adopted a 'third way' policy, where social democrats responded to the fall of communism by accepting capitalism. The admission of China to the WTO in 2001 made it clear that China's shift to the right was permanent, and even the Keynesian "left" died in the US with the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council. Combine that with a consensus on the necessity of the War on Terror until about 2006, and there was a huge amount of sameness between the parties, so no one was egregious enough to lose in a landslide. Then came the Great Recession and the coopting of grassroots leftist and rightist movements by the major parties.

It will be interesting to see how the mounting crises of the 2020s effect the closeness of elections worldwide. We're in a second big recession and we're going to get more migrant crises from one of these flashpoints in the Middle East and climate change. There's currently a kind of popular front strategy between neoliberals and the reemerging left epitomized by the neo-Keynesian claims of "Bidenomics", but the two will either synthesize like they did in the 1930s to create New Dealerism (more or less the wishy-washy middle Elizabeth Warren occupies) or the left will get tired of being treated like junior partners (see Pelosi vs. the Squad). It's hard to see the Republicans getting many more close elections if they continue to cultivate identitarian politics. Europe, on the other hand, could potentially start electing identitarians in landslides.