There was the national election with the count still ongoing in some states. And then there was the Colorado election.

There was the mass of ballots cast early and mostly via mail. And then there was the mass of votes cast in-person on Election Day.

In those two tales lies the story of this election.

Colorado Democrats were jubilant Tuesday night as they confirmed their stranglehold on Colorado with their leading candidates winning by huge margins. Save for the congressional district in rural, western and southern Colorado where, in a way, they won as well for installing Lauren Boebert as the new face and brand of the Republican Party in these parts.

On the national level, Democrats were, shall we say, less than ecstatic. Post-traumatic stress disorder is real and many Democrats lapsed back into 2016 nightmares. Those surefire predictions of a Democratic Senate? Oh, never mind – Democrats picked up a whopping one seat. Padding their majority in the House? Not so much, as a handful of Democratic moderates from swing districts bit the dust.

A Biden win and the dispatching of Trump, looking still uncertain but increasingly likely as of these Thursday keyboard clicks, will of course do much to assuage Democratic spirits. If that comes to pass, Democrats will have achieved, by a nerve-wrackingly narrow margin, their foremost objective. Yet, they know that they still left much on the table in another night of marked underperformance. What was forecast to be a Democratic wave was not even really a ripple.

To the second tale of the difference in voting methodology, therein lies the up-and-down emotions of election night and the extended aftermath. True to form, Biden voters were overwhelmingly early voters while Trump voters heeded their champion’s disdain of the pandemic and showed up to the polls on Tuesday.

Some states, such as Florida and Ohio, reported mail votes first, which fueled Democrats’ early hopes Tuesday night and led to erroneous conclusions as to the degree of Biden’s improvement on Hillary Clinton’s count. On the flip side, we are now totally focused on states that tallied Election Day ballots first and only later got to the vast number of mail votes. Given the two universes in which we live, those states showed seemingly comfortable Trump leads that were illusory once the mail was opened and tabulated. 

Even in deeply red counties, those mail votes were disproportionately Biden votes. In a deeply divided nation, that division this year even extended to voting methodology. Which makes those of us here in Colorado appreciate our process all the more.

Having said that, let me add a half-dozen quick-take observations now less than 48 hours later.

1. Just as used-car dealers thank the Almighty for politicians so that there is someone held in lower public regard, so commentators such as myself can give thanks for pollsters. With only the rarest of outliers, it was another very tough night for these opinion experts following the debacle of 2016. It should be evident by now that there is a substantial portion of the Trump constituency that will just not share their true feelings with some anonymous survey-taker. The entire industry requires a serious reappraisal if it is ever to regain credibility.
2. If Trump departs the White House, no matter how unwillingly or ungraciously, in some ways everything will have changed. But looking at the electoral map, it is notable how little really changed. It was largely a status quo election in both the House and Senate. In the presidential race, precious few states moved from four years ago. In a triumph of irony, Trump might want to reassess his stated view on John McCain’s “heroism.” Beyond Arizona and perhaps Georgia, both also of consequence for longer-term political patterns, we are talking only of the upper Midwest that are again as all-important as they were four years ago, along with a single, perhaps all-important congressional district around Omaha. While elections are won or lost at the margins, the reality is that few Americans changed their mind despite all of the tumult of this presidential term. 
3. Even in likely defeat, Trump overperformed given an election in the middle of a pandemic where 60% or more of the population contended we are headed in the wrong direction. Such conditions spell the death knell for almost any incumbent. While that may well be the case with Trump as well, it should not have been this razor-close by any standard measure. Demographics notwithstanding, this remains a center-right and culturally conservative country. The combination of politically correct campus nonsense, the obsession with group identity, the ransacking of statues, along with the often hyperbolic charges of “socialism” when it comes to economic policies all took their toll. Both parties face some serious recalibration ahead.
4. Character is revealed in both victory and defeat, but especially in the latter case of bad news. The President and his damn-the-torpedoes loyalists are playing with matches in disparaging the vote-counting process. Even respected Republican election experts state that vote fraud in this country is rare and exceedingly small in scope. Let the process move forward in good faith; then let journalists of all ideological stripes dive into any credible suspicion of impropriety. This dangerous narrative that is being built has less to do with fixing errors than with delegitimizing the result.
5. Winding up closer to home, the Colorado Senate race proved to be rather non-competitive in the end. Cory Gardner managed to run nearly five points better than Trump, which is a few points more than I thought possible. But, ultimately, Trump’s deep unpopularity in this state plus the increasingly deep blue hue proved far too much drag. Congratulations to John Hickenlooper. Let’s now see how invested he is in this work. And given the results, let’s be clear that virtually any serious Democratic candidate would have prevailed. The task did not require Hickenlooper riding in like a white knight.
6. Of all the ballot issues that went this way or that, two will prove most consequential. The family leave initiative is a triumph of good intentions over details. If you like the financial mess that is Colorado PERA, you will love what this program looks like five or 10 years down the road. On the other hand, the repeal of the Gallagher Amendment is the first tangible step after endless years of lament over Colorado’s “fiscal thicket” or “Gordian knot.”

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for ColoradoPolitics and the Denver Gazette. Reach him at EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann. Read previous columns here.