San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Biden mandate will quickly be put to the test
WASHINGTON — Joe Biden’s bet on the 2020racewas a simple one: that a nation riven by deep partisanship was ready for a reset.
He knew he wouldn’t be the most electric candidate or the most compelling speaker. He knew he was running as an old, white man in a party that is growing younger and more diverse. He knew that to win, he would need the energy of liberals and the support of centrists, slices of the electorate with little in common beyond a shared disdain for President Donald Trump.
Biden ultimately emerged victorious, a moment of celebration and relief for his supporters.
However, the results sentmixed messages about the nation’s eagerness to turn the page on one of the most polarized periods in modern U.S. history.
Biden carried some of the key battleground states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, by narrow margins.
He won more votes nationwide than any presidential candidate — more than 74 million and counting — but Trump’s popular vote total also topped previous records, reflecting the president’s hold not onlyonhis core supporters but the
Republican Party at large.
With victory in hand, Biden has claimed a mandate. Whether he actuallyhas one will soon be put to the test.
Not only were Biden’s margins of victory in the battleground states tight, but Democrats struggled in Senate races across the country.
Their hopes of flipping the chamber and giving Biden the leverage he would need to pass major legislation will likely rest on a pair of Senate runoffs inGeorgia in January.
The 2020 campaign also made abundantly clear the depths of Trump’s support, particularly among white, rural Americans. They saw in Trump an unlikely kindred spirit, a president who fought aggressively against establishment forces in Washington, in Hollywood and other pantheons of power. He made his supporters’ grievances his own and gave them a voice where they believed they had none.
Trump also has not conceded the election to Biden, vowing to launch unspecified legal challenges to the outcome. His refusal to concede, however, doesn‘t have any practical effect on Biden’s victory.
Trump can, however, make Biden’s transition into the White
House difficult. He gets 10 more weeks in office and can wield his executive powers across a range of issues. And once he does depart the WhiteHouse, he’ll still have his high-octane Twitter feed, and perhaps even a continuation of his rallies, to keep mobilizing his supporters.
Biden will have to navigate that deep divide among Americans. And in Washington, he may try to revive a lost art: bipartisan compromise.
SomeDemocrats scoff at the notion that Republicans might see any incentive to work with Biden. Others believe Biden’s long history in the Senate gives him a fighting chance of winning over some in the GOP.
“Thefact thathehas long-standing relationships with Republicans in the House and Senate will be an advantage. He’s a known quantity to them,” said Valerie Jarrett, who worked with Biden while serving as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama.
Biden also will be pushed from the left flank of his own party.
Liberals largely put aside their frustrations with Biden’s more moderate recordduring the general election, deciding the need to defeat Trump was greater than their differences with the former vice president’s health care or climate change proposals.
“Electing Biden is not the endall, it is the beginning,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination, then led the way in urging progressives to back him.
Biden’s victory does bring to an end Trump’s tumultuous administrationandsignals a newapproach to the nation’s handling of the pandemic, economic uncertainty and social unrest.
Throughout the race, Biden cast the stakes as nothing short of existential, warning that four more years of a Trump presidency would “fundamentally change the nature of who we are as a nation.”
Thiswas more than an election, he argued, it was a battle for the very soul of America. It sounded like a cliche but seemed to resonate with more Americans with each passing week of the campaign.
Part of Biden’s argument centered on the goodwill he had built up with voters, particularly during his eight years as vice president.
Despite relentless attacks on him from Trump for more than a year, a majority of Americans maintained a favorable impression of the former vice president.
When Trump tried to brand Biden as a far-left socialist or a corrupt criminal, Biden’s strongest rejoinderwas often to turn to a camera and tellAmericans, “You know me.”
“For voters, they knew who he was, they knew what he stood for, they knew he was a good person with an honest heart,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, one of two dozen Democrats who challenged Biden for the party’s nomination. “He really was the right man for the moment.”
For many Americans, the direct consequences of Trump’s presidency grew more dire in the final months of the campaign, as the pandemic took hold.