There was a little clue very early in the evening. The voters interviewed across the country for
disliked Biden plenty: forty-three per cent approved of him, and fifty-four per cent disapproved. But they disliked Donald Trump even more: thirty-seven per cent viewed him favorably, and sixty per cent unfavorably. The Republican plan had been to run on the economy, and to offer themselves as an alternative to a status quo that the public seemed ready to reject. But that is harder when a conservative Supreme Court has just made the unpopular decision to
of Roe v. Wade. And it is particularly hard to do when Trump is still integral to the political news, saying crazy things, as he did at a Monday rally in Dayton, like drug dealers ought to be summarily executed. If Americans broadly think things are going badly, then conservatives are still part of the reason.