It's time for candidates to win landslide elections. No more close races.

[Suburbia]

I'm sick of this.

Enough is enough.

Joe Biden is the president, it is high time for Trump supporters to move on. Now.

The same thing with Trump's victory in 2016.

They won.

Candidates need to sweep the nation, to have a convincing mandate.

No more 2000 or 2016 elections.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

What?

[Bootes Void]

I agree bronz

[Inmate Trump]

I like candidates who win the popular vote.

[BG-NY]

Trump won by 0.77%, Biden won by 0.63%. Elections that close are a disgrace. 2024 might be even closer.

[Joe Republic]

ok we’ll get to work on it stat

[Suburbia]

What?

Biden should have smashed Trump to pieces, clear cut victory, Reagan 1984-Clinton 1996 style...

Biden has a stupid cloud over his presidency because Garland won't prosecute the hell out of Trump...

[emailking]

Vote then.

[Pericles]

What?

Biden should have smashed Trump to pieces, clear cut victory, Reagan 1984-Clinton 1996 style...

Biden has a stupid cloud over his presidency because Garland won't prosecute the hell out of Trump...

Agreed, it would have been so nice to have an earthquake election realigning American politics and forcing the Republican Party to actually regret their actions. I'm sure it will happen one day, there have been long periods of close divides before and they end up breaking.

[OSR stands with Israel]

What?

Biden should have smashed Trump to pieces, clear cut victory, Reagan 1984-Clinton 1996 style...

Biden has a stupid cloud over his presidency because Garland won't prosecute the hell out of Trump...

Agreed, it would have been so nice to have an earthquake election realigning American politics and forcing the Republican Party to actually regret their actions. I'm sure it will happen one day, there have been long periods of close divides before and they end up breaking.

Well it did happen in 2008 , it’s just that the democrats completely squandered it

[President Johnson]

The country is too divided for 1964 or 1984 style landslides ever to happen again. Even semi-landslides like 1988 or 2008 are hardly possible. Less people are open to vote for the other side as they were in the 20th century. From 1920 to 1988, almost each second election was some kind of a landslide and both parties won such. Consequently, there were millions and millions of people who switched within a single term or just very few cycles (and eventually switched back).

The days of national landslides are pretty much over. Usually, if the country was less polarized, Trump would have been defeated in a 1932-style landslide after the disastrous term (or would already have been slaughtered in 2016). That won't change until there's enough of a demographic shift in one way or the other to shift the balances of power. I was always hoping sooner or later enough Republican voters would simply die off so that the Democratic Party would become the dominant force with a coalition of minorities, college-educated suburban whites and Millennials/Gen Z voters. And that the Republican Party subsequently has to moderate and become more like Canadian Tories or the German CDU to become a viable force again. I'm not sure, however, whether that's a legitimate hope anymore or not just a liberal pipedream.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

People are really letting down hardworking politicians.

[It’s so Joever]

Pro-incumbent BRONZ.

[Person Man]

The country is too divided for 1964 or 1984 style landslides ever to happen again. Even semi-landslides like 1988 or 2008 are hardly possible. Less people are open to vote for the other side as they were in the 20th century. From 1920 to 1988, almost each second election was some kind of a landslide and both parties won such. Consequently, there were millions and millions of people who switched within a single term or just very few cycles (and eventually switched back).

The days of national landslides are pretty much over. Usually, if the country was less polarized, Trump would have been defeated in a 1932-style landslide after the disastrous term (or would already have been slaughtered in 2016). That won't change until there's enough of a demographic shift in one way or the other to shift the balances of power. I was always hoping sooner or later enough Republican voters would simply die off so that the Democratic Party would become the dominant force with a coalition of minorities, college-educated suburban whites and Millennials/Gen Z voters. And that the Republican Party subsequently has to moderate and become more like Canadian Tories or the German CDU to become a viable force again. I'm not sure, however, whether that's a legitimate hope anymore or not just a liberal pipedream.

How would the Republicans be able to do the same? Is that just a conservative pipedream?

[OSR stands with Israel]

 That won't change until there's enough of a demographic shift in one way or the other to shift the balances of power. I was always hoping sooner or later enough Republican voters would simply die off so that the Democratic Party would become the dominant force with a coalition of minorities, college-educated suburban whites and Millennials/Gen Z voters. And that the Republican Party subsequently has to moderate and become more like Canadian Tories or the German CDU to become a viable force again. I'm not sure, however, whether that's a legitimate hope anymore or not just a liberal pipedream.

The problem with that theory is democrats already did get that type of win and that happened in 2008. Democrats won a huge electoral victory and won big among young voters , made huge inroads with college educated white voters , and even won non college educated whites in many Midwestern states . The GOP after 8 years of Bush was completely decimated everywhere except with White voters in the South and rural voters in the West and pretty much seemed destined for at least 10-12 years in the wilderness . Obama and the Democrats just completely squandered their 2008 victory and it probably will take another generation for them to get that opportunity again .


Also I don’t think the Canadian Tories and the German CDU are comparable as Stephen Harper governed way to the right of Merkel and and really even any UK Tory PM since Thatcher. The Harper/Scheer Tories were basically a Pro Choice Version of the GOP(and even then both of them would almost certainly be pro life if they ran in America) and that Tory Government was in power for a longer consecutive time than any Tory government since 1922 . While Erin did try to make the party more like the UK Tories , doing so did anger much of the Tory base .

[DPKdebator]

Mary Sue (I-MI)/Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (I-CA): 538 EV, 98.2% PV
Donald Trump (R-FL)/Michael Pence (R-IN): 0 EV, 1.0% PV
Joseph Biden (D-DE)/Kamala Harris (D-CA): 0 EV, 0.8% PV

[Pericles]

Pro-incumbent BRONZ.

BRO-NZ? See my sig. Coincidence?

[Big Abraham]

Trump won by 0.77%, Biden won by 0.63%. Elections that close are a disgrace. 2024 might be even closer.

The increasing political polarization and extreme partisanship resulting in now almost uniformly close elections (within one percentage point) is a result of decades of neoliberal destruction and globalization (which has also caused the global decline of democracy generally, as well as the rise of both left- and right-populism). Economic insecurity caused by job loss has sparked a huge political backlash as both parties continue to generally neglect economic improvement and other issues falling squarely into one camp or the other.

Hence why our politics now closely resemble those of America in the late 19th century (the most "classically liberal" era in U.S. history), where no presidential candidate won in an election that was not a squeaker, marred by open political violence (sound familiar?) and highly polarized political discourse (again, sound familiar?). The landslide presidential elections in our country occurred at uneven intervals first in the early 19th century (e.g. 1804, 1820) when the spirit of Jeffersonian democracy and egalitarian landownership ideals was alive and well, and in the mid-20th century (e.g. 1936, 1964) where populism and party ID was weakest and there was an established consensus between the two parties on issues like labor unions, welfare, etc.

[Progressive Pessimist]

You're right, but you're acting like this is something that can be so easily resolved. As long as our politics continues to diverge, in elections that matter, landslides are very unlikely, especially nationally.

What we really need is an end to the Electoral College. The 2020 election wouldn't have seemed so close if Biden winning by over 7 million votes actually meant what him winning by 40,000 in three states did.

Of course, like most systemic reforms in our country, that's about as likely to happen as seeing a genuinely funny car insurance ad.

[Conservatopia]

Mary Sue (I-MI)/Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (I-CA): 538 EV, 98.2% PV
Donald Trump (R-FL)/Michael Pence (R-IN): 0 EV, 1.0% PV
Joseph Biden (D-DE)/Kamala Harris (D-CA): 0 EV, 0.8% PV

What was the margin in Marion County, IN?

[TrumpBritt24]

Sir, this is a Talk Elections Forum.

[DPKdebator]

Mary Sue (I-MI)/Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (I-CA): 538 EV, 98.2% PV
Donald Trump (R-FL)/Michael Pence (R-IN): 0 EV, 1.0% PV
Joseph Biden (D-DE)/Kamala Harris (D-CA): 0 EV, 0.8% PV

What was the margin in Marion County, IN?

Mary Sue+96.3

[Person Man]

We’ve had 9 elections in a row that were decided by 9 or less percent. Our last record was 7.

[DaleCooper]

I also don't understand why the last couple presidents chose to win narrowly instead of by a landslide.