Ungrateful electorates: Trump’s win shows why voters don’t always reward success

By Pippa Catterall, Professor of History and Policy, University of Westminster

When US voters re-elected former president Donald Trump, the result appeared to contradict the theory that democratic electorates punish governments for failure and reward them for success.

That model had certainly seemed to work in 2020, when Joe Biden won the election. Biden’s inheritance from Trump included a failure to tackle the pandemic effectively. Only 4% of Americans were vaccinated although vaccines were only starting…

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