Election 2020: One for the History Books Quiz

Answer: Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown

The Democratic Primary was won by former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden got off to a rocky start by not even placing in the top three in either Iowa or New Hampshire, the first two states that vote in the primary and typically candidates need a strong showing in both states. However, Biden surged in the South Carolina primary where they primarily was full of African-American voters.

The 2020 Democratic field was one of the largest in history. It included strong frontrunners with high name recognition like Biden, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. It also included a number of rising stars like South Bend Mayor Peter Buttigieg and California Senator Kamala Harris. Other candidates included Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, while speculated to be a candidate, did not run. Brown was believed to have a strong base with white working class voters with whom Democrats had performed poorly with in 2016.

Answer: Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton did not endorse a candidate in the Democratic Primary until Biden's win was a foregone conclusion.

Jim Clyburn was a Congressman from South Carolina and the House Majority Whip. He was widely considered a kingmaker in South Carolina Democratic politics. After Biden struggled in the first three contests, Clyburn endorsed Biden on the eve of the South Carolina primary where Biden needed a landslide victory to stay in the race. Clyburn's endorsement was seen as a greenlight to the large African-American constituency in South Carolina that the community should vote for Biden. Biden won the state in a landslide.

The South Carolina Primary occurred three days before Super Tuesday when a large amount of states were holding their contests. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, who both performed poorly in South Carolina but well elsewhere, suddenly dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden. All three were seen as competing for white, well-educated suburban voters who were splintering their votes. Biden did exceptionally well in and won many Super Tuesday states including Klobuchar's home state of Minnesota. Biden also won Massachusetts and Maine, two states Bernie Sanders was more or less assured victory in had the splintered field remained.

Many establishment oriented Democrats feared a win in the primary by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders meant a loss to President Trump in November as Sanders was a Democratic Socialist and that would be used as an attack. Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropping out was widely seen as a last attempt to knock Sanders out of the primary.

Answer: Biden: "I would have been happy to appear virtually"

The first presidential debate of 2020 was extremely controversial and widely panned as the worst debate in U.S. history. Much of the controversy stemmed from the combativeness of the candidates. In particular, President Trump repeatedly interrupted Vice President Biden which prompted Biden to tell his opponent to shut up. Another highly controversial event was Trump appearing to refuse to condemn white supremacists (blaming such violence on the left) and refusing to say he would accept the election results. Trump repeatedly accused Biden, Democrats and even some Republicans of cheating and conspiring against him by expanding mail voting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden repeatedly insulted Trump's intelligence which prompted Trump to retort that Biden was the one of lesser brilliance and seemed to imply Biden was suffering from dementia.

Biden never said he wanted to appear virtually during the first debate. A number of precautions where instituted because of the pandemic. Biden said he would debate Trump virtually a week or so later when Trump tested positive for coronavirus and the second debate was cancelled.

Answer: Michigan

Biden flipped five states Donald Trump won in 2016: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He also flipped Nebraska's Second Congressional District worth one electoral vote. Donald Trump didn't flip any state or district that allocates an electoral vote that he lost in 2016.

Answer: 1

Ticket splitting used to be very common but 2016 saw zero states split their vote for president and senator. In 2020, only one state split. Maine re-elected long-time moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins (although she only narrowly avoided the instant runoff and this was her closest re-election contest) while sending Joe Biden to the White House.

In the House elections, only a dozen or so districts split their votes with many of them having very close results, which was a historic low.

Answer: False

Democrats flipped the Senate by knocking off Republican incumbents in Arizona, Colorado and both of Georgia's seats. However, Democrat Doug Jones lost his re-election battle in Alabama. Jones was widely believed to have no chance of winning re-election in the heavily Republican state of Alabama after he won it under extremely fortuitous circumstances in a 2017 special election.

In addition, Democrats also needed the Vice President's tiebreaking vote in the Senate, which they achieved when Kamala Harris was sworn in on January 20, 2021.

Answer: Georgia

Joe Biden won Georgia by 0.24%, making it the closest state in 2020. Biden became the first Democratic candidate to win Georgia since 1992. The closest state by vote margin was Arizona which Biden won by slightly over 10,000 votes just slightly less than Georgia's vote margin.

Answer: President Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and rebuilding the economy

The COVID-19 pandemic was by and large the main issue during the election. President Trump generally received poor marks for his effort to combat the virus. In particular, he was criticized for not taking the virus seriously, repeatedly saying it would just go away on its own, refusing to wear a mask and trying to counter state governors and their efforts to fight the pandemic. This culminated in the fall with President Trump himself contracting the virus after hosting a mostly maskless event at the White House to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court after the sudden death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Several members of the White House team contracted the virus. In addition, Trump repeatedly said the death toll was inflated to make him look bad and criticized government health care officials such as the popular Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Much of the election campaign focused on the virus and subsequently how to fix the economy largely shut down by the virus.

Answer: Arizona and Pennsylvania

During the lame duck period, President Trump and his closest allies refused to concede the election and insisted that Trump had actually won. They claimed allegations of voter fraud cost him several swings states. These allegations were rejected by state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, dozens of times and found almost no support even amongst Trump-appointed judges. The main, specific complaint was that mail in voting that many states had adopted during the pandemic was unconstitutional.

The effort to overturn the election was criticized by Democrats and many officials in the Republican Party who saw the efforts as Trump loyalists defying democracy, not accepting a loss and harming the Constitution and the U.S.'s peaceful transfer of power. Others saw it as an attempt by ambitious Republicans to earn goodwill with Trump during their speculated future runs for president.

During the counting of the votes, Arizona's votes were objected to by Rep. Paul Gosar and Sen. Ted Cruz and both houses of Congress were required to debate those votes. During the debate, a mob of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol Building in what would be called an insurrection to stop the electoral vote counting and have Trump declared the winner. Members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence were evacuated to the Capitol shelters and other safe spots. Some of the rioters vandalized the building, waved Confederate and Trump flags, broke into offices, stole items and physically assaulted law enforcement. One Capitol police officer was murdered in the riot.

When the Senate and House reconvened later that night, the tone had changed. Some of the Republicans who had stated they would challenge the results changed their minds while others were still insistent. The objections to Arizona and Pennsylvania's votes were rejected. President Trump's role in the riot was controversial and he was subsequently impeached for inciting the insurrection.

Answer: Pennsylvania

Many states passed new laws allowing for no excuse absentee voting and procedures for voting by mail to avoid long lines and crowds on Election Day. Some states did this because of the threat of spreading the coronavirus such crowds may cause while others, like Pennsylvania, had passed the law before the pandemic. Because President Trump had railed against such procedures, Republicans largely waited to vote on Election Day or during in person early voting times. Because early and absentee voting is counted differently and later than Election Day votes in many states, initial results strongly favored Trump in places. However as mail-in ballots began to be counted, Trump's lead shrunk and shrunk in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia. This phenomenon is called the red mirage or blue shift.

Ohio, Florida and North Carolina were all swing states that had the opposite effect. All three states counted their mail-in ballots prior to Election Day so the initial results there favored Biden until more and more of the Election Day vote was counted and Biden's lead shrunk until Trump passed him.