As Democrats’ colossal collective sigh of relief drives wind turbines even over in Britain, let’s not lose sight of the big story. However welcome, Joe Biden’s win was supposedly a dead cert. Even conservative commentators like Andrew Sullivan were hoping for a landslide. The real big story is that Donald Trump came within about 73,000 votes of winning the Electoral College. Democrats have celebrated the fact that their man got more votes than any other presidential candidate in history. But who got the second largest number of votes in history? Donald Trump. Of all people. And a 75 million vs 71 million popular vote gap is hardly yawning. Had a Libertarian candidate not ‘stolen’ votes from Trump in key swing states, he’d have sailed across the finish line with electoral votes to spare.
Much like the UK’s general election last year, America’s this year revealed a public that’s surprisingly conservative, even among minorities.
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