Bill Scher

With infrastructure talks continuing to hit snags, many Democrats don’t believe Republicans are negotiating in good faith. And why should they? During the Obama presidency, when some Republicans initially expressed interest in compromising on major Democratic priorities including health care, climate change and immigration, they would always find some excuse to bail. Why should we expect Republican behavior during the Biden presidency to be any different? Because today the Republican party has genuine incentive to cooperate. First, Republicans want to shed their obstruction reputation. Many assumed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would run the same filibuster-heavy playbook he used against Obama.

Senate Republicans have the opportunity to not only convict Donald Trump of 'incitement of insurrection’, but also punish him with a ban on ever running for political office again, so he could never again be president or the standard-bearer of the Republican party. If you are a Republican who believes Trump is a figurative cancer on the GOP, then this is your best chance to remove the tumor. The problem, as with any operation, is that the procedure comes with risk. For one thing, the surgeon might not remove all of the cancerous growth. What if Trump and Trumpism have already spread too widely inside the party?

Democratic joy at defeating Donald Trump was partially dulled by the simultaneous diminishment of the party’s House majority. As of Sunday at least 11 Democratic-held House seats have been lost to Republicans (while Democrats have flipped three others). That’s the biggest net loss in a presidential election year by the winning presidential candidate’s party in 60 years. The unexpected divergence in the two results sparked a round of reciprocal recriminations between the House Democratic caucus’ moderate and left-wing factions. Moderates blamed the 'defund the police' sloganeering and 'socialist' branding from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her supporters, which Republicans deployed in swing district attack ads.

Joe Biden is going to win. I have been wrong before. I will be wrong again. And maybe I’m wrong today. But we do not have any significant data to suggest Donald Trump was ever in a position to win reelection, or that he is closing the campaign with any sort of momentum needed for a come-from-behind victory. Four years ago, we did have such data. In the RealClearPolitics national polling average, Hillary Clinton’s lead shrunk nearly six percentage points between October 18 and November 3, before ticking up a bit at the end. Her share of support throughout the duration of the general election campaign never reached 50 percent, an indication of soft support.