The Big Lie keeps getting bigger and bigger as ardent Trump fans can't accept that a man who drew tens of thousands to his rallies could possibly lose by the numbers he did. The only explanation in their minds is there was fraud, cheating, Chinese ballots and an army of the dead turning out to perpetuate what Trump calls the crime of the century. That makes a great story for conservative parents to scare their children with around the campfire but when you actually look at the numbers it not only doesn't add up but it's ludicrous and there are a lot of examples to prove it. For case number one let's go to Texas.
Texas is the reddest of red states and Trump was expected to win which he did with 5,890,347 votes compared to Biden's 5,259, 126 which is an impressive 631,221-vote difference. But let's look at the other election. Sen. John Cornyn won his seat with 5,962,983 votes which was 72,636 more than the total votes Trump received. How did a Republican senate candidate garner more votes than the Republican presidential incumbent? A possible answer is a lot of Republicans stayed with Cornyn but didn't vote for Trump. Perhaps they were part of the 126,243 Texans who voted for the Libertarian candidate. The point is in red, red Texas where Trump won as expected the numbers show many in his own party chose not to vote for him while voting for other Republicans.
Now let's go to hotly contested Arizona where Trump lost by 10,457 votes causing the Trumpsters to scream fraud and triggering recounts, an audit and the current fraudit. The numbers again are telling. The Libertarian candidate got 51,465 votes in Arizona. If only half of those voters were Republicans dissatisfied with Trump that accounts for the 10,457 votes easily. The Senate race in Arizona is also interesting. Democrat Mark Kelly got 1,745,467 beating Biden's 1,672,143 total by 44,324. The Republican candidate Martha McSally got 1,637,665 votes, which was 24,021 less than Trump. Based on the numbers it's obvious in Arizona there was probably some cross-party voting and it's likely independents broke for the Democrats in both the presidential and Senate races. Given all those factors the 10,457 Trump loss is easily explained and accounted for.
Maine is an interesting case as Biden won the state but Republican Susan Collins was reelected. Collins received 417,645 votes while Trump only managed to pick up 360,737. That's a 56,908-vote difference. Why the split? Again, the most likely answer is independents and many Republicans were turned off by Trump but voted Republican in other races.
The other contested states show the same patterns. In Wisconsin there were 38,491 Libertarian votes and 10,934 votes for other conservative leaning candidates. Trump lost there by 20,682 votes. In Georgia where Trump lost by 11,779 votes there were 62,229 Libertarian ballots cast. Trump lost Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes and the Libertarians picked up 79,380.
So, what to make of all this? First, on the eve of the election Biden was leading Trump in the polls 52% to 44%. Second, Trump's approval rating never hit 50% during his entire time in office. His low was 35% hitting a high of 49% only at one point. He averaged at about 45%. On Nov. 3, 2020 Trump trailed in all the national polls and had a 45% approval rating. Not exactly winning numbers.
Trump's trump card in 2020 was his hold on the GOP base. He bragged he had a 96% approval rating among Republicans. That would be impressive if it was true but it's not. His actual numbers were closer to 92% and 93%. That's still pretty solid but it shows anywhere from 7% to 8% of Republicans didn't approve of Trump. Put that on a national scale and especially in tight swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and it could mean a few thousand vote difference.
Looking at the numbers and the math the only surprise in 2020 would have been if Trump did manage to pull off a win as he did in 2016 by a mere 88,000 votes. He admittedly did come close in 2020 but his unpopularity among Democrats, independents and a small but important segment of Republicans proved his undoing. In 2016 a large number of Democrats couldn't stomach Hillary Clinton and showed their displeasure by voting third party, not voting for Clinton but voting for the down ticket races or voting for Trump. In 2020 the roles were reversed and Biden benefitted from the same factors that helped Trump in 2016. As happens all too often in American politics people didn't vote for a candidate as much as they voted against a candidate and this time around that candidate was Donald J. Trump.