Season 1, Episode 7 | Ballots, Not Bullets: A 2024 Election Recap

Have you ever wondered what happens when an election unfolds in unexpected ways? 

This episode dives into the surprisingly decisive 2024 presidential election, exploring its unique dynamics and the implications for American democracy. Despite expectations of a close race, the results were clear almost immediately, leaving room to reflect on the shifting coalitions, demographic trends, and the role of the Electoral College in modern elections. What does this tell us about the future of American politics?

Join hosts Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon as they analyze what this election means for political parties, the electorate, and constitutional processes like the peaceful transfer of power.

Tune in for an engaging conversation that connects the election outcomes to broader themes in constitutional governance and American civic life.

In This Episode

• 00:42: Overview of the 2024 Presidential Election
• 02:02: Historical Context of Previous Presidential Elections
• 03:02: Changing Dynamics of Party Control and Dominance
• 04:04: Shift in Party Demographics and Minority Vote
• 05:02: Breakdown of Voter Demographics by Ethnicity and Sex
• 06:02: Discussing the Latino, Black, and Asian American Vote
• 07:23: Shift in Republican and Democratic Party Bases
• 09:24: Electoral College and Senate Outcomes
• 11:02: Peaceful Transfer of Power and Concession Speech
• 13:10: Importance of Adhering to Constitutional Principles
• 14:01: Process of Voting by Electors in the Electoral College
• 15:55: Managing Faithless Electors
• 17:23: Role of the Archivist in Electoral Process
• 18:13: Introduction to the executive agency
• 18:32: Role of the Vice President on January 6th
• 19:02: Historical context of Vice Presidents declaring their defeat
• 19:13: Kamala Harris's responsibilities and constitutional role
• 20:00: Process of opening electoral votes in Congress
• 21:02: Potential outcomes and controversies in the 2024 election
• 22:00: Trump's legislative prospects and potential challenges
• 23:07: Impact of divided and unified government on passing legislation
• 25:02: Significant bipartisan legislation examples
• 25:42: Election results and political stability
• 26:01: Future of American politics and upcoming elections
• 26:22: Conclusion and call to continue learning about the Constitution

Notable Quotes

• [00:01:14] “We have an incoming president who won the Electoral College, a majority of the popular vote, and all swing states—a clean sweep in 2024.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston
• [00:06:49] “Race is losing salience, while gender and class are becoming more central to party politics.” — Matthew Brogdon
• [00:15:06] “The decentralization of the Electoral College makes election fraud at a national level incredibly difficult.” — Matthew Brogdon
• [00:18:55] “The power of transitions reminds us of the strength of our constitutional system, even in divisive times.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston

Matthew Brogdon

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-brogdon-8a21bb89
• https://x.com/profbrogdon

Savannah Eccles Johnston

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/savannah-eccles-johnston-515a72198/
• https://www.instagram.com/savypolitics/

Transcript

 Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:27 - 00:00:40]

Welcome to This Constitution. I'm Savannah Eccles Johnston. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:41 - 00:00:42]

And I'm Matthew Brogdon. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:42 - 00:01:01]

And today we're going to recap the 2024 presidential election. When we first thought about this episode, we were expecting it to be a much tighter race with lots of complications and interesting constitutional questions to be answered. It was very chill. This was not what we were expecting from the election. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:01:02 - 00:01:14]

It's Thursday morning at 9 a.m. We're less than 48 hours from election day, and we've known for 24 hours what the outcome is. I'm not sure anybody expected that degree of decisiveness. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:01:14 - 00:01:32]

Right. And we have an incoming president who didn't just win the Electoral College, he has swept—well, is probably going to sweep—seven of seven swing states, and will win the direct popular vote and a majority of the vote. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:01:32 - 00:01:44]

That's right. All three of these are different things. We always think of these as sort of being the same thing, but about a third of the time, nobody wins a popular vote these days, at least for the last hundred and almost two hundred years. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:01:44 - 00:01:45]

Do you mean the majority? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:01:45 - 00:01:50]

The majority. That's right. Nobody wins a majority of the popular vote. So most of the time we're relying on plurality. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:01:50 - 00:01:51]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:01:51 - 00:01:57]

So it's not an exceptional thing, but it at least is an important thing when somebody actually wins the popular vote by more than 50%. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:01:57 - 00:02:17]

So he's three for three. He's three for three in 2024. Let's put this in context. Bush did not get three for three in 2000. He did in 2004. Obama did in 2008 and also in 2012. Trump did not in 2016. And did Biden get the majority? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:02:17 - 00:02:21]

Biden did get in 2020. A majority in 2020. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:02:21 - 00:02:22]

There you go. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:02:22 - 00:02:35]

It's Republican presidents have struggled a little bit. Well, it's not entirely fair. Like you said, Bush got one. It's the first time. The headline from the New York Times was the first time in 20 years that a Republican got a majority of the popular vote. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:02:35 - 00:02:35]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:02:36 - 00:02:54]

But we actually struggled in the 90s too, because, remember, we had a spoiler for Clinton's elections. We had Ross Perot, which meant nobody got anywhere close to a majority in 92 and 96, Reagan won majorities. So it's, you know, this is the thing about American politics. We have close elections. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:02:55 - 00:02:55]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:02:55 - 00:03:03]

When American politics is running in the way it normally runs, you know, old hat for us is very closely contested elections. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:03:04 - 00:03:30]

But also we have eras where one political party dominates presidential election after presidential election. Right? Republicans for 30-plus years of the 19th century and then the FDR coalition for 32 years. We're actually in kind of an odd era where we're switching between equal party strength. And now we seem to be entering an era, hopefully not permanently, of one-term presidents back and forth, back and forth. And we really haven't done that since the 1840s. 1850s. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:03:30 - 00:04:24]

Yeah. We've gotten used to divided government being the norm at this point, which has been the norm for quite some time. It used to be, you pointed out, the early 20th century. I mean, since the Civil War, we kind of went through periods of one-party control for 10, 15 years, followed by a brief period, maybe a decade of parties contesting the election and having divided government, having different parties winning the White House and Congress, and then that usually would settle back into one party control again for a stretch of time and then another period of realignment. And for the last, the last party to really do that was the Democrats right up until Reagan to some extent, although they had to suffer through Republican presidents. So really, since the New Deal coalition fell apart right in the middle of the 20th century, we haven't really had one party sustained one-party control of the government.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:24 - 00:04:52]

Though Democrats maintained that FDR coalition all the way up until the 90sIn Congress, in Congress and the presidency. So Reagan builds this coalition. The Reagan coalition is not the coalition that elected Donald Trump, though. We seem to have a new coalition and a strange unstable era in American politics of really, really tightly contested elections. And I don't see this as the beginning of a new era of one-party control. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:52 - 00:04:52]

No. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:52 - 00:04:53]

Right. That's not what we're entering into. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:53 - 00:05:01]

No. We're reconfiguring the electorate into more contested elections. It's just the group of people on each side are reconfiguring a little bit. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:05:02 - 00:05:02]

Yeah. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:05:02 - 00:05:12]

The biggest turnover in that regard that this election really highlighted was Republicans are now, and this is a broad generalization, Republicans are now the party of the working class. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:05:12 - 00:05:13]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:05:13 - 00:05:15]

Democrats are the party of the economic and social elite. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:05:15 - 00:05:16]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:05:16 - 00:05:49]

And that is a switch. Now, we've been going through that for a while. I actually think George W. Bush represented some shift in that direction. Right? Some Republicans being more working-class types though, you know, George Bush had owned the Texas Rangers. He wasn't exactly a working-class type, but certainly, his personality was such that was appealing to him. So we've undergone that shift in a significant regard that's affected also the Democrat's diminished hold on certain minority and immigrant populations. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:05:49 - 00:06:13]

Right. This brings us to the Latino vote. Donald Trump has done better among Latino voters than any Republican since George Bush. Speaking of that connection. And seems to be actually building on that and taking more black men away and has done very well among them. It was funny when you break down the demographic groups, they had white, black, Latino and then just other. He is doing very well among the others, whatever that is. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:06:13 - 00:06:49]

Asian Americans are the largest part of that group. Asian Americans are the fastest growing contingent of Americans outside of our standard categories, and ethnic categories, and they have traditionally been not quite the Democratic stronghold that black Americans were, but were traditionally a Democratic constituency. And that has shifted significantly as well. Also, first and second-generation immigrants voting for Trump, at least as far as our exit polls can tell. I mean, we have perfect data about this. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:06:49 - 00:07:13]

Well, this is something interesting. If a large chunk of immigrants are coming from very conservative countries, that's not a surprise that they would vote for the more socially conservative president. These are not a natural demographic for Democrats then, though Democrats seem to have convinced themselves that they would be a natural demographic. And you can see that in places like Dearborn, where it's not just Gaza, it's also social policies. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:07:13 - 00:07:53]

What we've become used to since the Civil War, the American party system has been connected to the politics of race in a significant way. Right? The party of Lincoln enjoyed the black vote in America for a very long time until the New Deal coalition pulled them away, making them part of the Democratic base. And of course, the civil rights movement in the 1960s consolidated the fact that Lyndon Johnson and Democrats in Congress managed to oust the segregationist wing of the party and enact civil rights. We've become very used to that and that seems to me to be crumbling a little bit. Race is losing salience remaining, but what Is gaining party politics is sex.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:07:53 - 00:08:10]

That seems to be more important. So if you look at Trump's gains among certain racial groups, it's among men, primarily in those racial groups. So that is becoming a shockingly salient factor in American politics. And that's global. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:10 - 00:08:14]

By the way, the biggest divide in terms of sex was between black women and black men. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:14 - 00:08:15]

Oh, was it? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:15 - 00:08:23]

There was a large divide there, other men and women. You know, if we look internally to other constituencies, the divide wasn't quite as large as it was. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:23 - 00:08:24]

It was still around 10 points. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:24 - 00:08:32]

It was. Although that goes away if you add in children. Men and women who have children did not vote appreciably differently in the election. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:32 - 00:08:50]

Which may explains why Gen Z, the generational divide, is actually the largest, which is interesting. But again, this is a global phenomenon, and also, I don't think it looks good for our birth rate going forward. If there is a political divide between men and women and people are not willing to date those on the other side of the aisle, it's still not extreme.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:50 - 00:09:05]

Actually, it's not as extreme. Overall, I think the split was about 10 points, but that's not radically outside the range of sex differences in electoral outcomes. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:05 - 00:09:13]

But it's more important than race in this election. It tells us more about how Trump was gaining than among races. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:13 - 00:09:15]

You mean the movement was more influential?

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:15 - 00:09:31]

No, we're not at South Korea's levels yet, but that's a good thing for sex divide. All right, all right, so let's look at what that means. So Trump, probably seven out of seven swing states, he'll get well over 300 points in the Electoral College. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:31 - 00:09:33]

312 is the most likely outcome right now. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:33 - 00:09:34]

Right. Okay. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:34 - 00:09:56]

And then that's about 58% of the electoral College. So the Electoral College is doing its thing that it usually does, which is it takes a 51% popular vote and inflates it up to almost 60% in the Electoral College. So it's doing its thing of magnifying a small difference in the popular vote into a large lead in the Electoral College, which is useful, actually, for making a more legitimate presidency.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:56 - 00:10:13]

Okay. Then we look at the Senate, and it looks like Republicans have taken the senate. They're at 52 right now. May pick up one, maybe two more seats. The House, we don't know yet. It's tightly contested. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:13 - 00:10:21]

Yeah. The most important thing about that Senate divide, I mean, we still have the filibuster, but we've gotten rid of the filibuster for judicial appointments at this point. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:21 - 00:10:23]

That's a good letter for all appointments at this point. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:23 - 00:10:50]

Pretty much, yeah. So that means with 52 votes in the Senate, any judicial vacancies should be easy for Trump to fill, and he'll be able to get a Cabinet that at least pleases Republicans in the Senate, which might not be exactly the Cabinet Trump would pick if he had his own way, but will still be much different. Then if he had a 50/50 split like Biden had in the Senate. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:50 - 00:11:01]

Right. Though what will help him is that you have a one, maybe two vote cushion when it comes to Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who may not go for every single Trump appointment. He'll have a cushion there. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:01 - 00:11:06]

Yeah. There's no Joe Manchin to spoil everything for the Republican Party program. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:06 - 00:11:14]

Exactly right. So the moderates are all gone except for Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. They've basically all died this election or retired. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:14 - 00:11:16]

There are some new senators coming in. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:16 - 00:11:17]

Good point. I can't judge them yet. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:17 - 00:11:22]

So I'm curious to see what happens. Someone will spoil the party for Republicans, that is certain. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:22 - 00:11:23]

Maybe there's no Joe. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:23 - 00:11:25]

Man is going to make a mess. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:25 - 00:12:30]

There's a new Kyrsten Cinema just waiting to take the mantle. Okay, so this is Trump's big job between now and January 20, is stocking up his Cabinet, preparing a transition team, and then preparing his Cabinet in the meantime. The big job on the Democrats side, Biden and Kamala Harris, is a peaceful transfer of power. Kamala Harris gave her concession speech yesterday, which I thought was actually quite good. I thought it was excellent. Here's a great quote. She said, in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States and loyalty to our conscience and to our God. When I heard her say that, I was like, is this George Bush or Bill Clinton? This is an old kind of sentiment, but one that's deeply appreciated, this idea of loyalty to the Constitution and a commitment to the peaceful transfer of power. Her campaign chairman came out early on Wednesday morning and said, we are committed to transferring peacefully. Biden has already called Trump and welcomed him to the White House to begin that transition. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:12:31 - 00:13:10]

So can I point out one important thing about this, and that is, I think this is a broad application to Democratic politics generally. The thing that commits people to a stable set of rules and to following the rules even when they lose is the prospect for those out of power that they might be in power at some point and for those in power that they will be out of power at some point. So the power exchanging hands and any given person knowing that whoever's in the driver's seat today might not be tomorrow is a very important fact that reinforces commitment to constitutional principles and to playing by the rules. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:13:10 - 00:13:31]

Well, and Kamala nodded to that in her speech when she said, I concede this race, but I don't concede the fight. So she'll be back or Democrats will be back. What's interesting about that is that it seems to hold true for the Democrats in this election. But it was not self-evident that there would have been a concession on the other side, especially had it been a very tight race. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:13:32 - 00:13:35]

That's true. Though it does look like democracy's not at an end. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:13:35 - 00:14:28]

Thank you. I had a lot of students who were quite panicked yesterday that that was the last election they would ever vote in, which I think is deeply silly. You've got a midterm coming up in two years. No worries. Democracy will march on. Okay, so let's go over what happens between now and inaugurating the President. What is the role of the electors in the Electoral College? And then what is the role of Kamala Harris? Because she has a role still to play. Conceding was not her only role. And fortunately for her, she's still going to be in the public eye. And of course, Biden will continue to be president. So first, on December 17, the electors in all the respective states will meet together to officially cast their states votes, put it in an envelope and send it to Congress. And you said something very funny earlier. You said it's quite useful that they are in different states and not all together why? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:14:28 - 00:14:53]

Well, I mean, you can't kill them all at once. This was quite deliberate. When the framers put together the Electoral College, there are some weird provisions in there that we don't pay a lot of attention to. One of them is that the electors will meet in their respective states on the same day. So Congress can determine the day that the Electoral College meets, but they have to meet in separate states and they have to do it the same day.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:14:53 - 00:14:53]

That means nobody can cast their vote twice. Right? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:14:53 - 00:15:06]

Right. So there's no crossing state. You can't get from one state to the other in the same day, at least not in the 18th century. And the assumption was no one could pull off some kind of fraud all at the same time in multiple states on the same day. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:06 - 00:15:06]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:08 - 00:15:24]

Technology has changed that a little bit, but still these people have to meet in person, face to face, and cast their votes in these small groups in each state. So that does make it very difficult. I mean, a foreign power that wanted to disrupt the casting of electoral votes would actually face a serious logistical problem. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:24 - 00:15:29]

So this decentralization is actually quite useful for protecting the election for the Electoral College too. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:29 - 00:15:44]

I mean, the fact that we have 51 separate elections for president, not just one big national election, actually means that to affect the electoral outcome usually you'd have to do it in numerous states, in this case this election, seven different states all at the same time. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:44 - 00:15:44]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:44 - 00:15:49]

That actually makes election fraud very difficult to pull off. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:49 - 00:15:49]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:49 - 00:15:54]

At least in a way that's of a wide enough scope that actually affects the outcome of the election. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:54 - 00:15:58]

Right. Well, that brings us to faithless electors. It doesn't matter what I like to call them. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:58 - 00:16:00]

Just electors. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:16:00 - 00:16:31]

I'll call them faithless electors. All right, so it doesn't really matter if there are one or two this election because he's won by such a large margin. I don't think anyone's expecting any faith as electors to begin with. And there has been a real movement in the states. 32 states, plus the District of Columbia now have regulations requiring electors to cast their vote according to the direct statewide vote. Over half of those include financial penalties and a process by which you would remove that elector, nullify their vote, and select a new elector. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:16:31 - 00:16:53]

And actually there are alternates. Most states have alternate electors in case there's an untimely death, or something of that kind. Actually, I'm not sure if it's a state. I know that electors have been disqualified from being elected to Congress before or elected to a federal office because the Constitution says you can't do both. I'm not sure if we've actually had the experiment of a state removing an elector. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:16:53 - 00:16:55]

We have Washington, I think, on account of? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:16:55 - 00:17:00]

I'm saying this on account of not casting their vote in accordance with the state's directions. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:00 - 00:17:06]

Yeah. So the Supreme Court decision on this was in reaction to I think it was Colorado and Washington. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:06 - 00:17:07]

Yeah, it was Chia. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:07 - 00:17:11]

One penalized and one removed and nullified that vote. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:11 - 00:17:12]

Oh, okay. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:12 - 00:17:14]

From what I understand about the penalty. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:14 - 00:17:16]

I didn't realize they had removed and nullified it. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:16 - 00:17:16]

That's at least what I said. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:16 - 00:17:20]

I think that's probably unconstitutional, but we'll save that for another episode. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:20 - 00:17:42]

Yeah, I disagree. All right, so we'll leave that aside. So then once they have cast their votes they've sent their nice little envelopes to both the President of the Senate and to the archivist of the National Archive, which apparently you've told me is one of the longest-standing positions in American politics. Okay, great. Glad that person exists. Then we will. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:42 - 00:17:50]

And somebody has got to keep the, you know, in every office, somebody's got to make sure that the important piece of paper goes in the file and knows where to find it. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:50 - 00:17:50]

Good point. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:51 - 00:17:55]

And this has been the archivist for 230 years now. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:55 - 00:18:02]

Right. The quiet hero of American politics. Right, right. So how are they selected, by the way? They're nonpartisan. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:02 - 00:18:05]

The Archivist of the United States is, I'm pretty sure, a political appointment. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:18:05 - 00:18:06]

Oh, really? Okay. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:06 - 00:18:10]

There we go. It's the National Archives and Records Administration. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:18:10 - 00:18:12]

Okay. And that's partisan. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:13 - 00:18:14]

It's an executive agency. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:18:14 - 00:18:15]

Wow. All right. Okay. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:15 - 00:18:18]

Well, I wouldn't call it partisan. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:18:18 - 00:18:20]

Selected by a partisan president. There you go. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:20 - 00:18:26]

I don't think it's like a cabinet position that we routinely turn people out when the presidency changes. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:18:26 - 00:18:26]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:26 - 00:18:30]

I'm pretty sure it requires Senate approval and I don't know. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:18:30 - 00:19:22]

Never really looked into it, to be honest. Okay, so then, on January 6, it is the job of the Vice President who has just lost this election, Kamala Harris, to stand before Congress and read out. Open the envelopes read out the votes while they're tallied, and then declare the winner. Now, she will not be the first person, the first vice president, to preside over her own defeat, though each time, I actually find it deeply impressive. So Nixon did this in 1961, and Al Gore did this in 2001. And it's a great moment for American democracy when the loser has to stand up and declare their opponent the winner officially. It's a good thing. So she will have to do that. January 6. There is some concern that I've heard that, oh, she will refuse to certify. She has no power to refuse to certify the election, just constitutionally. This was clarified in a 2022 law as well. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:19:22 - 00:19:29]

Yeah. This is pretty clear from the constitutional text. I know we had a little argument over this in 2020, but the text actually doesn't say that the vice president counts the votes. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:19:29 - 00:19:29]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:19:30 - 00:20:22]

It says, in the presence of the House and Senate, the vice president shall open the votes, which shall then be counted. It uses the passive voice. So it doesn't actually assign the counting to anyone in particular. It just says, they shall then be counted. But it puts in an active voice. The vice president or the president of the Senate shall open the votes in the presence of… So they gotta remain sealed. They open them traditionally. They read them out. They open it, and they say, X number of votes from this state. Or Kamala Harris X number of votes for Donald Trump. And then someone else actually keeps the tally. Now, it is undoubted that if some dispute arises about how many votes were cast for someone, it's unavoidable that Congress is there in a joint session. Clearly, Congress is going to have to settle the controversy. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:22 - 00:20:23]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:23 - 00:20:53]

Actually, we had this weird argument about that, too. A few people were like, no, no, Congress can't do anything about this or refuse to certify votes. It was like, well, who is this mysterious person who's going to show up and say, you 535 elected people stand to the side. I'm going to settle this controversy. So it is unavoidable in a way that if there was a controversy, and there was in 1876, Congress would have to come up with a way to fix it. And they've done that with the Electoral Count Act. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:53 - 00:20:59]

But in 2024, there is no anticipated controversy. There's just a clear winner in the electoral College.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:59 - 00:21:02]

Just a minuscule but non-zero number. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:02 - 00:21:07]

Right. So Kamala Harris will stand up in a purely ceremonial role and declare her own defeat. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:07 - 00:21:08]

That's right. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:08 - 00:21:16]

And that's her entire role. So that's what she has to look forward to in the next few months, other than, I'm sure, getting some more sleep. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:16 - 00:21:19]

This wonderful emblem of the peaceful transfer of power. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:19 - 00:21:27]

I deeply appreciate this process, actually. I really like that a loser might have to stand up and in a constitutional role, certify their opponents. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:28 - 00:21:28]

That's right. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:28 - 00:22:15]

I think it's great. All right, so there we go. That's what Harris will be doing. This is what Trump will be doing. And this takes us to what to expect. Trump won't be inaugurated until January 20. So we've got a little bit of a gap there. And what do we expect from Trump in his first two years, that kind of honeymoon period when presidents typically are not always, but typically enjoy a more unified Congress and can get one, maybe two big pieces of legislation passed? For example, his big piece of legislation in 2017 was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This time, may be even harder, because we're not sure if he's going to have a unified Congress. And even if he does, it'll be at such razor-thin majorities in the House. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:15 - 00:22:30]

I should point out one thing. Historically, if he gets a unified government, in the modern era of closely contested elections and minuscule margins, the party that gets unified control almost always loses at the midterm. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:31 - 00:22:37]

But this is just the midterm effect, where the President's party always loses seats in the midterm, except for one time with Bill Clinton but in the era

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:37 - 00:22:42]

So this is a weird situation. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:42 - 00:22:42]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:42 - 00:23:04]

You might actually be better off winding up with a narrow loss in one house of Congress during the presidential election. You can blame the other party for not being able to move forward. If we haven't gotten done, then you actually have a chance to pick up seats at the midterm. That can happen. In the context of a divided government, that almost never happens. The president gets punished. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:23:04 - 00:23:16]

You even see this in 2008 and Obama didn't win narrow majorities in the House or the Senate. He had quite a significant majority and was just killed in the 2010 Midterms in the House. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:23:16 - 00:23:19]

Yeah, the bailout in Obamacare. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:23:19 - 00:23:30]

Right. But also this is normal. Presidents will lose seats. The only question is how many they will lose. But even Obama with these big majorities really just gets one big piece of legislation, Obamacare. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:23:30 - 00:23:40]

But we should point out too that an actually divided government performs just as well, if not better, at actually generating meaningful legislation. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:23:40 - 00:23:44]

Is that true in the 21st century? Though I don't believe in Francis Lee. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:23:44 - 00:24:10]

And James Curry in their most recent book, back in 2020 of all times, made this case and made it pretty compellingly. We don't notice the most. And also even in unified government, the most meaningful, durable pieces of legislation pass with substantial bipartisan majorities. Which means they would have passed even right in the context of a divided government. Maybe the post-trial is like Obamacare, we think. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:10 - 00:24:11]

I was gonna say that Democrats passed Obamacare, but Obamacare had very little appreciable long-term effect.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:11 - 00:24:37]

Most of its core policies wound up being repealed or abrogated. I mean the Supreme Court took a swipe at it with the Medicaid requirement and then Republicans made the individual responsibility payment a non-issue until it's been really cleaved down to what were its most bipartisan, most popular elements. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:37 - 00:24:51]

What about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act? That's the kind of signature legislative achievement for the first two years of the Trump administration. Last time that was passed along very partisan lines, but its effects haven't been nullified. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:51 - 00:24:52]

It was a temporary tax cut. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:52 - 00:24:56]

Okay, so it's re-upped potentially. Maybe in this next Congress, we'll see If he wins again.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:56 - 00:25:15]

You have to win another election to get that kind of legislation. But I think we don't notice significant legislation that passes in the context of divided government because it tends to be stuff with large bipartisan majorities and therefore it's not controversial and it doesn't wind up on the front page and nobody's mad about it on Twitter. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:15 - 00:25:27]

Well, actually there is something to say about that. Even in the Biden years, the infrastructure package was done by a bipartisan group of senators. What they call themselves. Was this a gang of six, a gang of eight, a gang of 12? I don't know. It's always something. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:27 - 00:25:28]

It was a gang. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:28 - 00:25:28]

It was a gang. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:28 - 00:25:29]

It was West Side Story. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:29 - 00:25:30]

There we go. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:30 - 00:25:32]

And they were passing legislation. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:32 - 00:25:39]

Yeah. And it's a very bipartisan and fair point. And not deeply controversial either. Well, this is a good point. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:39 - 00:25:42]

So we'll let the political scientists keep arguing about it. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:42 - 00:26:00]

Right. So what we basically have is what was supposed to be a potentially very controversial, very contentious presidential election, which was up until November 5, turning into a very peaceful and decisive election result. American politics continues to surprise us. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:26:00 - 00:26:13]

That's right. And in four years, Donald Trump will not be eligible to run for president and we'll get somebody new at the head of the Republican Party, which will be probably the most important change in American politics. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:26:13 - 00:26:19]

Right. And to clarify, there will be another election in two years. So elections aren't over. The cycles aren't over. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:26:19 - 00:26:20]

That's right. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:26:20 - 00:26:51]

We march on. We're just beginning to explore the rich legacy of America's Constitution. If today's discussion deepened your understanding, share this episode with a friend or student and subscribe to continue learning with us. For more insights and exclusive content, visit https://www.uvu.edu/ccs/. Thank you for joining us and we look forward to exploring more with you on This Constitution brought to you by the UVU Center for Constitutional Studies, home to Utah's Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative.