Black and Hispanic voters defect from Democrats, who have long relied on identity-politics appeals.
When Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, it was the first time since 1992 that a Democratic president’s party also ran Congress. Democrats were giddy in anticipation of a political realignment reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 or Ronald Reagan in 1980, but it never emerged. Republicans took the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. Then came Donald Trump.
Republicans ran the table last week, though this recent history might serve as a cautionary tale for reading too much into the results. What’s clear is that Mr. Trump’s popularity has grown since he left office, to the astonishment of liberal journalists, who refuse to let facts interfere with their worldview. Democrats thought they could use the courts to keep the former president off the ballot, bankrupt him and possibly put him in prison. Those efforts not only failed but were counterproductive. Voters saw Mr. Trump as the victim of partisan prosecutions. Worse for Democrats, they also saw him as the answer to four years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.
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