Power of Presidential Incumbency; Biden breaks the streak of two term Presidential administrations

The historic 2020 Presidential election with a Joe Biden victory will break the streak of three consecutive Presidential administrations of back to back terms--Bill Clinton-1992/1996; George W. Bush-2000/2004 and Barack Obama-2008/2012. The last time that happened in U.S. history was in the era of the Founding Fathers.  Thomas Jefferson elected as President was followed by James Madison and then James Monroe, each for two terms as President. While there was no formal order of succession for those three Founding Father Presidents, there were strong geographic, personal, cultural and party ties among those three Founding Fathers which likely facilitated the success of their quest to be President.  That likely could never be replicated in the complex multi-faceted electorate of today.

Having said all of that, President Trump clearly used all of the advantages of the incumbency to run a very formidable campaign and he showed a remarkable ability to close the campaign out strongly in the last two weeks. The symbolism of Air Force One to reinforce a message of force and power while traveling around the country, doing campaign rallies in battleground state to draw local and national media attention, looking to draw attention to his Administration's policy and personnel actions to support his Campaign goals, and other efforts to speak directly to the American people by bypassing the media showed President-elect Biden what a great and vigorous campaigner Trump is on the national trail. Trump made skillful use of the tools available to an incumbent President in his quest for re-election.

Biden upended an incumbent President. That is a very difficult task to perform. It shows the strength of his campaign tactics and the impact that the historic level of voter turnout had in connection with the 2020 Presidential race.