FiveThirtyEight: “Typically, after losing a presidential election, a political party will undertake an intense intra-party debate over why it didn’t win and how the party needs to change to take back the White House. Democrats did so after losing in 1988, 2000, 2004 and 2016. In fact, even after winning in 2020 – taking control of the White House and U.S. Senate and maintaining control in the U.S. House – Democrats are having an intra-party debate, trying to figure out why they didn’t win more House seats and struggled with Latino voters. Republicans, too, have had such debates, after losses in 1996, 2008 and 2012. But not this time.”
“Despite Republicans losing the White House and Senate in 2020, and thus being totally swept out of power in Washington, there’s been no official ‘autopsy’ or widespread consideration of appointing new leaders or anything else. In the period after the 1988 presidential election, the Republican Party has lost the popular vote in all but one presidential race (2004). It has lost three of the last four presidential elections and allowed itself to be dominated by former President Donald Trump, who was twice impeached for breaking with democratic values. But it is moving forward like none of that really happened.”