'An unpopular felon' may have cost the Republican Party votes last November: analysis

New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn says Republicans squandered an opportunity to win by a bigger margin than they did in the November elections.

“There was an opening for Republicans to do better and perhaps much better,” argues Cohn. “… Voters wanted change, badly. They were repelled not just by Mr. Biden’s faltering condition, but also by rising prices and perceived failures of Democratic governance on everything from immigration to energy.”

But the race was close for one reason only: Donald J. Trump.

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“He was an unpopular felon who had alienated millions of Americans with his comments and actions over nearly a decade. … His weaknesses plainly made a landslide victory more challenging,” said Cohn.

Only 40 percent of voters approved of Joe Biden’s performance, according to polls, and nearly three-quarters thought the country was heading in the wrong direction. The public’s evaluation of the economy, meanwhile, was almost as bad as it was in the pit of George W. Bush’s National Recession.

“The president’s party has never retained the White House with numbers that bad, Cohn said, which is why Republicans built a four-point advantage in party identification, according to the exit polls. It fueled gains in party registration and encouraged youth and nonwhite voters to trickle over to the GOP.

Only 46 percent of voters had a favorable view of Kamala Harris, making her the third-least-popular major party nominee on record after Hillary Clinton—and Trump.

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“If this was all you knew, you would almost certainly guess that the incumbent’s party was going to lose by more than the 1.5 percentage points it did,” said Cohn, but then came Trump with his low approval among independents who were toying with the prospect of a GOP vote. Cohn said both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis fared well against Biden in some polls, suggesting the possibility of a wider margin win if the wider electorate had gotten an opportunity to choose them.

The Republican Party polled well on nearly all the bigger issues including the economy, immigration, foreign policy and crime. The only notable exceptions were "democracy" and "abortion", and neither of which were Trump’s strong point.

“No party ever plays its cards perfectly,” said Cohn, but “it’s reasonable to wonder whether conservatives missed an opportunity in this election.”

Read the full New York Times report here.