2020 election: Biden vs Trump

Republicans, progressives, and independents never thought very highly of Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2020, they thought even less of Joe Biden. Although he had less baggage than Clinton, he was constantly besieged by his past mistakes, from opposing a means of desegregation, to voting for the Iraq war, to his son's business dealings in Ukraine. In addition, his gaffes were becoming increasingly frequent and obvious. Throughout 2018 and 2019, Biden consistently led the Democratic field in the polls, and he declared his candidacy in April of 2019.

Biden won a very narrow victory in the Iowa caucuses, but Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primaries comfortably. Biden rebounded with wins in Nevada and South Carolina, but Sanders won 7 states on Super Tuesday, including California. It continued to be a nip-and-tuck, back and forth battle between the 2 candidates up until the DNC convention. Despite Sanders being immensely popular, the DNC nominated Joe Biden. Sanders' supporters were enraged, as were many Republicans and moderates. It seemed that the 2020 nomination fight was like 2016 all over again. Although Bernie Sanders conceded and proclaimed his full support of Biden, people still were not able to move past what had happened.

After clinching the nomination, Biden nominated Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate. He focused his campaign on the rust belt states that Trump won in 2016, as well as a few other swing states. Although Trump was not able to smear him with the dreaded "socialist" label, the president pounced on all of Biden's past mistakes and controversies. Biden was portrayed as an out-of-touch elitist who flip-flopped on many issues, whereas Biden and his allies portrayed Trump as a pathological liar and criminal who has no regard whatsoever for American principles or values. The two of them engaged in 3 presidential debates in October. Although Trump largely resorted to bragging, name-calling, and personal attacks rather than debating actual policies, Biden came across as distant and boring. Biden also made several more mistakes and gaffes during the debates, which Trump was quick to take advantage of. Kamala Harris and Mike Pence also engaged in 1 debate; more people thought that Harris won the debate because she was much more lively and animated and was not hesitant to viciously criticize Pence on a variety of issues.

As election day approached, CNN, MSNBC, and most other liberal and independent news outlets said that Biden would be the likely victor in the election, or that it would be too close to call. However, most Americans had heard such predictions about Hillary Clinton 4 years previously, and few people believed them- especially with the economy continuing to grow. As such, most people were not surprised on election night at 9:45 PM et, when Trump was projected to easily win reelection. Trump's victory in 2020 was even more impressive than that of 2016; he picked up several more states that remained blue in 2016 and won the popular vote by a sizable margin as well. Trump also had expanded on all his margins of victory and narrowed his margins of defeat from 2016 in every state except Delaware, Maryland, California, and New York. Not only that, Biden was only barely able to win New Jersey, Colorado, Connecticut, and Oregon; these states that were long thought to be safely Democratic territory were not declared to be incredibly narrow victories for Biden until 4 am EST, long after Trump had clinched reelection. Trump even legally could have called for a recounts in these states, but there was no need to because he already had won regardless. 2020 was the greatest and most humiliating defeat for a Democratic candidate since George H.W. Bush's 40 state romp of Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Popular vote results by State: Wyoming                                          200,359                           30,494