Not sure what you mean by a 1 on 1 race, but Ford and Bush '41 also lost their re-election campaigns. So in the last 40 years, 3 incumbents lost re-election, 4 won it. And arguably Trump is already running with a total national catastrophe -- himself!Bog wrote:It is just so damned hard to not get re-elected when you're the incumbent, whatever the hell the reason. I mean we're looking at Hoover and Carter as far as elected dudes who ran a 1 on 1 race to actually lose in at least 120 years? The former there had a total national catastrophe to run with as well.
One thing I have to keep reminding myself is that, in electoral terms, Trump won by 78,000 votes in 3 states, which means not ONE Trump voter has to vote Democrat in 2020 to flip the White House. He can maintain 100% of his voters -- something I have doubts he'll do regardless -- and the Democrats can still win simply by motivating enough non-voters and working to make sure those who want to vote in states with draconian disenfranchisement laws have the proper IDs.
None of this is to suggest that Democrats should get complacent -- though absolutely no evidence suggests the left is doing that -- but there are some pretty clear roadblocks ahead for the GOP that I don't think can be denied in this environment.