Sean Trende: Political Analyst on Trump's success in the US Election, the impact on the Democratic Party

It’s been a tense night in the United States as the vote were counted.  

While the House is still up for grabs, CNN projects Republicans will win control of the Senate and Trump will win the popular vote. 

Political analyst Sean Trende told Ryan Bridge the result has exposed some real pressure points for the Democrats. 

He says that Trump won one in four black male votes, and black voters have been a backbone of the Democratic coalition since the 1930s. 

Trende says that to see Trump make those advances suggests there’s something really amiss in the coalition.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The polls had a very tight race. We all know that.
So what exactly got Donald Trump and the Republicans over
the line? Sean Trendy is one of America's best known posters.
He's with Real Clear Politics. He's a senior election analyst
there and he's with me this morning. Sean, welcome to
the program. Where does this victory for Trump rank in

(00:21):
terms of history?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
It's almost unprecedented. We have one example in the US
of presidents winning non consecutive terms, so it was Grover Queenveland.
I'm sure you've heard of him back in the late
eighteen hundreds. Other than that, presidents that lose or even
canvas lose, typically don't come back and win another term.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
The Republicans have also flipped the Senate. What's happening with
the House race?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
The House is very close, It's surprisingly close, actually, and
it looks like Republicans will likely lose a couple seats there.
Even if they do manage to control the Chamber, that's
going to be a very very big am for them.
They had a tough time keeping the Chamber together with
the narrow majority they already have. Narrowing it even further
is going to be a nightmare to navigate.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
What does that mean for the trifecta power of a
Republican white House Senate and albeit a week in majority,
but a majority nonetheless in the House.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, they'll likely have the trifecta, which means they have
at least nominal control. But remember here in the US,
we have something in the Senate called the filibuster, which
means effectively you need sixty votes in order to keep
to get anything done. That's going to almost certainly put
a question mark on anything Donald Trump wants to accomplish,

(01:45):
at least substantively in the States.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
What do we know about why people voted for Donald Trump?
The economy, cost of living.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
That's a big factor. I mean, different people will tell
you different things, and we're still digesting the returns. The
most interesting thing though, is that Trump won one in
four black men. Black voters have been a backbone of
the Democratic coalition since the nineteen thirties. So to see
Trump make those advances suggest that something's really a miss
in the Democratic coalition.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, and that is going to be quite a hurdle
for them to try and overcome, isn't it. Because they
haven't quite managed to get back those middle class white
voters in the Roust Belt, for example.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Either that's right, there's some real pressure points on the
Democratic coalition right now, and to have this result come
about with the candidate who has the plane miss steps
that Donald Trump has really calls into question. What could
happen if the Republican Party were to nominate someone with

(02:46):
a similar platform but who didn't make some of the
same mistakes that Donald Trump consistently makes.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
When it comes to Ukraine, Donald Trump has obviously been
talking about ending that war by Christmas. Do you think
that means he might pull support?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
I think he'll certainly threaten it. And yeah, I think
his supporters have a real, real problem with the continued
money that's been flowing to Ukraine. I think there's gonna
be a lot of pressure on him to pull support
and I'm going to be really surprised if he doesn't
do it.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
What does it say about the state of the United
States when they elect a president who is a convicted felon,
who has threatened to go after the media, go after
quote left wing lunatics, and here he is now was
forty fifth now a forty seventh president.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well, I do think that a lot of the things
that resonate with some voters don't resonate with others. I
think that the I do think that the felony convictions
were seen as politically motivated, given that they did occur
in our most heavily democratic city. But you know, at
the end of the day, if you can give people,

(04:00):
or at least promise people, you know, a good standard
of living, they'll put up with a lot of other
things that might strike a lot of other people as
pretty horrifying.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Sean, thank you very much for your time. Really appreciate
your analysis that Sean Trend the Real Clear Politics senior
election analyst. Thank you for more Family Edition with Ryan Bridge.
Listen live to News Talks. It'd be from five am weekdays,
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