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As he loves to remind people, Donald Trump got about 12 million more votes in 2020 than he got in 2016. His haul of over 74 million votes is the second-highest vote total ever earned by a US presidential candidate.
Unfortunately for him, the No. 1 position is held by Joe Biden.
But for non-Trump Republicans, Trump's strong loss in November presented a lot of silver linings. Trump turned out a huge number of voters who normally would not have voted in a presidential election, and they largely voted Republican down the ticket. Trump also lost a lot of traditionally Republican suburban voters to Biden— this is why he lost the election — but enough of those Biden voters picked Republicans down ballot for Republicans to have a good night in races for Congress and state legislatures.
This was a best-of-both-worlds result for most of the Republican party, since they added irregular voters whom Trump turned out while also securing some Biden-GOP split ticket voters. So instead of recriminations and blame that might ordinarily follow a one-term incumbent's loss, Republicans have continued to suck up to the president, pretending to believe he was the real winner and even making a half-assed attempt to steal the election for him — in hopes that they could continue these electoral dynamics into the future.
But instead of the best of both worlds, the Georgia result shows how keeping Zombie Trump around can give the Republican party the worst of both worlds.
That is, when Republicans should have been trying to woo back suburban Atlanta voters with the promise of a moderating check on President Biden, they instead threw red meat to Trump's base, elevating him and his conspiracy theories at a time when his approval rating was falling.
Instead of Republicans regaining former strongholds, Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock* improved their showings in the Atlanta suburbs compared to November. And, without Trump on the ballot, Republican turnout lagged Democratic turnout.
Where the GOP goes from here
So what do Republicans in Congress plan to do today? Well, over a hundred of them are likely to raise objections to the results in swing states where Biden beat Trump, trying to throw out the result of the election that Trump lost. Josh Holmes, formerly the chief of staff to soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, tweeted last week of this effort that "rarely can you predict with 100% assurance that years from now everyone who went down this road will wish they had a mulligan."
It's fashionable to talk ruefully about the Trumpification of the Republican party and say Republican officials will face no consequences for doing Trump's bidding. But we saw some of those consequences in Georgia this week. And there can be more down the line. By voting today to steal the election, Republicans are handing Democrats a talking point they can use for years, tying Republican officials to Trump long after he is gone from office.
You know how Republicans won't shut up about Hillary Clinton, even after she has become irrelevant? Well, do you think Democrats are ever going to shut up about Trump? Even if he never runs for office again he will remain the No. 1 boogeyman for Democratic campaigners for years — and for good reason, as he's so unpopular. Unlike Clinton, Trump will help sustain his boogeyman status by drawing attention to himself whenever he can.
And now, Democrats will be able to remind voters of how specific Republican officials voted to steal the election for him. Trump wasn't just turnout magic for his own side; this will help Democrats use the specter of Trump to motivate their own base for years to come.
When Republicans ask exasperatedly why we are still talking about Donald Trump, who isn't even president anymore, this will be the answer. It's Democrats who are going to get to have Trump without Trump, not Republicans.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
There is justice in this. Republicans have built a party operation around vacuous grievance politics unrelated to a policy agenda. They elevated a leader who alienated a majority of the country as part of a bank-shot strategy to activate irregular voters, while hoping to convince some other voters not to pay too much attention to what he was doing.
It was too cynical by half and it failed.
Both Republicans and Democrats have overestimated the genius of the Republican strategy to wield power with the barest level of minority support possible. When you're only aiming for 47% of the vote you have a very thin needle to thread, and when you fail — as Republicans did this year — you end up looking very stupid.
Whatever the structure of our electoral system, the most durable way to wield power is to win majorities. Republicans would be well advised to stop looking for ways to keep Trump's magic without his downsides and start thinking about what they could do to actually appeal to a majority of the country.
*My husband is a Democratic fundraising consultant; the Warnock campaign was one of his clients.
SEE ALSO: Trump's sad implosion is a good sign for Biden's agenda
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