The Democrats’ Most Effective Election Ads Did Not Feature Trump
It was harder than ever to get Americans to change their minds in 2020, but low-budget and DIY campaigns helped Biden the most.
Four years ago, Donald Trump’s upset presidential victory shattered the Democrats’ notion that they knew what they were doing. “The mindset change that we have gone through is that, in the old world, we thought that we can understand people,” says Dan Wagner, chief executive officer of the data science firm Civis Analytics. “What 2016 really taught us is that we can’t.”
This year’s results show that they’re only beginning to figure it out. Joe Biden defeated Trump, winning more votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history. But the Democratic Party simultaneously lost seats in the House and failed to win back the Senate, barring an unexpected double victory in Georgia’s joint Senate runoff on Jan. 5.