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The 2020 Presidential Election Verdict
Author(s) -
Burden Barry C.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
presidential studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.337
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 1741-5705
pISSN - 0360-4918
DOI - 10.1111/psq.12715
Subject(s) - verdict , political science , democracy , presidential system , presidential election , vice president , law , general election , white (mutation) , public administration , law and economics , politics , sociology , economics , management , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
President Donald Trump entered the 2020 campaign with liabilities that made his reelection bid daunting. Despite an enthusiastic support base, Trump was soundly defeated in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Trump's perceived mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and uprisings over racial inequality prevented him from altering the trajectory of the campaign that had been set in his first election. A unified Democratic Party rallied behind former Vice President Joseph Biden as the candidate most likely to defeat Trump and restore normalcy. Although Republicans fared reasonably well in subpresidential races, the verdict of voters resulted in the rare removal of an incumbent party after just 4 years in the White House.