Books and More (Post-Election)

Journalistic and academic accounts offer interesting details and useful insights on the 2020 presidential campaign.


JOURNALISTIC ACCOUNTS




Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes.  March 2, 2021.  LUCKY: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency.  New York: Penguin Random House.
"The inside story of the historic 2020 presidential election and Joe Biden’s harrowing ride to victory, from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Shattered, the definitive account of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign...  Allen and Parnes brilliantly detail the remarkable string of chance events that saved him, from the botched Iowa caucus tally that concealed his terrible result, to the pandemic lockdown that kept him off the stump, where he was often at his worst. More powerfully, Lucky unfolds the pitched struggle within Biden’s general election campaign to downplay the very issues that many Democrats believed would drive voters to the polls, especially in the wake of Trump’s response to nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd..."


Edward-Isaac Devore.  May 25, 2021.  BATTLE FOR THE SOUL: Inside the Democrats' Campaigns to Defeat Trump.  New York: Viking. [Penguin Random House imprint]
 "An award-winning political journalist for The Atlantic tells the inside story of how the embattled Democratic party, seeking a direction for its future during the Trump years, successfully regained the White House... Edward-Isaac Dovere’s Battle for the Soul is the searing, fly-on-the-wall account of the Democrats’ journey through recalibration and rebirth. Dovere traces this process from the early days in the wilderness of the post-Obama era, though the jockeying of potential candidates, to the backroom battles and exhausting campaigns, to the unlikely triumph of the man few expected to win, and through the inauguration and insurrection at the Capitol."

Michael C. Bender.  Aug. 10, 2021.  FRANKLY, WE DID WIN THIS ELECTION: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.  New York: Twelve Books. [Hachette imprint]
"Michael C. Bender, senior White House reporter for the Wall Street Journal, presents a deeply reported account of the 2020 presidential campaign that details how Donald J. Trump became the first incumbent in three decades to lose reelection—and the only one whose defeat culminated in a violent insurrection... Fresh interviews with Trump, key campaign advisers, and senior administration officials are paired with an exclusive collection of internal campaign memos, emails, and text messages for scores of never-before-reported details about the campaign. FRANKLY, WE DID WIN THIS ELECTION is the inside story of how Trump lost, and the definitive account of his final year in office that draws a straight line from the president’s repeated insistence that he would never lose to the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol that imperiled one of his most loyal lieutenants—his own vice president."

Mollie Hemingway.  Sept. 21, 2021.  RIGGED: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our 2020 Elections.  Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.
"RIGGED is the definitive account of the 2020 election. Based on Mollie Hemingway's exclusive interviews with campaign officials, reporters, Supreme Court justices, and President Trump himself, it exposes the fraud and cynicism behind the Democrats' historic power-grab... It was a devastating triple punch. Capping their four-year campaign to destroy the Trump presidency, the media portrayed a Democratic victory as necessary and inevitable. Big Tech, wielding unprecedented powers, vaporized dissent and erased damning reports about the Biden family's corruption. And Democratic operatives, exploiting a public health crisis, shamelessly manipulated the voting process itself. Silenced and subjected, the American people lost their faith in the system."

John Heilemann.  Nov. 9, 2021.  HELL AND HIGH WATER: Joe Biden's Moment and Americas Existential Election.  New York: Simon & Schuster (+).
"The book will be a dramatic, first-hand account of Biden’s improbable, decisive, and potentially transformative triumphs over a sprawling field of Democratic rivals and then Donald Trump in a race with existential stakes...  Heilemann has known and covered Biden and his family for more than three decades, in print and on television. The forthcoming book will be based both on that unique history and Heilemann’s reporting on the 2020 campaign—when, amid a raging pandemic, a ruinous recession, and convulsive racial justice protests from coast to coast, the author criss-crossed the country to chronicle the critical moments of the fierce battle for the Democratic nomination and the tumultuous general election."


Ryan Lizza and Olivia Nuzzi.  Sept. 1, 2022.  Title tba.  New York: Simon & Schuster.
"Together, Lizza and Nuzzi’s combination of veteran experience and fresh perspective masterfully convey the significance of 2020’s momentous political and social upheaval in this turbocharged chronicle of the 2020 presidential campaign, taking us on a rollicking rollercoaster ride through an election year roiled by one shocking curveball after another."

Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns.  2022.  Title tba.  New York: Simon & Schuster.
"...a book by New York Times journalists Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns that aims to be the definitive assessment of the 2020 election as a turning point in American politics and the most complete account of the Trump-Biden campaign and its consequences. Mr. Martin and Mr. Burns have collaborated on and off for more than a dozen years, starting at POLITICO during the 2008 election. With deep reporting from both parties, their book will document a period of crisis in the country: a presidential race rocked by plague and protest, followed by a new administration facing overlapping national emergencies and the erosion of an old political order."

See also:
Michael Schaub.  "Former Trump Campaign Manager Writing Book."  Kirkus Reviews, Nov. 9, 2020.

and:
Chuck Rocha.  Aug. 19, 2020.   TÍO BERNIE: The Inside Story of How Bernie Sanders Brought Latinos Into the Political Revolution.  Strong Arm Press.
"This book is a true behind the scenes look at the Bernie 2020 Latino outreach operation and Chuck’s unique story of redemption through his personal journey to Bernie." — Jeff Weaver, Bernie 2020 Senior Advisor



ACADEMIC ACCOUNTS  







Andrew E. Busch and John J. Pitney, Jr..  Feb. 24, 2021.  DIVIDED WE STAND: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
"Continuing a R&L tradition now entering its fourth decade, this book provides the most comprehensive and authoritative account of the national 2020 election, including the presidential nomination process and general election, and congressional and state elections. Andrew E. Busch and John J. Pitney Jr. revisit the campaigns and results through the short lens of politics today and the long lens of American political history. With its keen insights into the issues and events that drove the 2020 elections, Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics will be an invaluable resource for students and all political observers seeking to understand a historic election that will continue to resonate throughout American politics for many years to come."


Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman, eds.  April 2021.  A RETURN TO NORMALCY? The 2020 Election that (Almost) Broke America.  Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
"In A Return to Normalcy?, Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and J. Miles Coleman bring together respected journalists, analysts, and scholars to examine every facet of the stunning 2020 election and its aftermath, and how these events will impact American politics moving forward. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines and dives into the underlying forces and shifts that drove the election from its earliest developments to its chaotic conclusion. A Return to Normalcy? is an indispensable read for political junkies and all students of American politics."


Nicola D. Gutgold.  May 2021.  ELECTING MADAM VICE PRESIDENT: When Women Run Women Win.  Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
 "When Women Run Women Win presents the presidential bids of the six women who ran for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2020 and the historic, groundbreaking vice-presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris... This book demonstrates the progress women candidates have made as they have moved from symbolic to viable candidates and shines a light on the diminishing obstacles that face women candidates while taking readers on a journey through the victorious progress of a woman United States Vice President."
Michael Nelson, ed.  June 15, 2021.  THE ELECTIONS OF 2020.  Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.
 "The Elections of 2020 is a timely, comprehensive, scholarly, and engagingly written account of the 2020 elections. It features essays by an all-star team of political scientists in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 general election, chronicling every stage of the presidential race as well as the coterminous congressional elections, paying additional attention to the role of the media and campaign finance in the process.  Broad in coverage and bolstered by tables and figures presenting exit polls and voting results in the primaries, caucuses, and the general election, these essays discuss the consequences of these elections for the presidency, Congress, and the larger political system."

Robert E. Denton, Jr., ed.  July 2021.  THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: A Communications Perspective.  Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
"As he has done for each presidential campaign since 1992, Robert E. Denton, Jr. gathers a diverse collection of communications scholars to analyze specific areas of the most recent campaign season.  Topics include early campaign rhetoric, the nomination process and conventions, candidate strategies, presidential debates, political advertising, the use of new media, news coverage of the campaigns... The first section addresses the major political campaign communication areas to include pre-primary/candidate surfacing, the conventions, the debates, political advertising, social media and news coverage of the campaign. The second section includes two unique aspects of political branding and the politics of food in the 2020 campaign. The final section of the volume provides the broad overviews of campaign spending and finance as well as the national perspective of explaining the vote."


William Crotty, ed.  July 2021.  THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020: Donald Trump and the Crisis of
Democracy.  Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
"The Presidential Election of 2020: Donald Trump and the Crisis of Democracy places the election of 2020 within the context of the Trump presidency, a chaotic and tense time in American politics and a dangerous one. The election is analyzed in depth and its meaning for the state of American society is made clear. A major theme in the book is a critique of Donald Trump's leadership, his incompetence in office, his appeal to followers and the danger this has proven to represent."


Luke Perry, ed.  Sept. 24, 2021.  THE 2020 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY: Key Developments, Dynamics, and Lessons for 2024.  Palgrave MacMillan.
 "This book examines the outcome, dynamics, and lessons of the 2020 Democratic Primary. The authors examine how Joe Biden separated himself from a crowded field of candidates, the role that primary rules played in this process, the influence of gender and race on the primary campaign, new developments with the Iowa Caucuses and national party conventions, and what all this could mean for the 2024 election."


Luke Perry, ed.  tbd.  THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: Key Issues and Regional Dynamics.  Palgrave MacMillan.
"...will adopt a regional approach to understanding 2020 presidential election outcomes. Contributors analyze electoral outcomes in the Midwest, Southwest, Southeast, and Northeast, enriching contextual understandings of the national results and illuminating nuances in public opinion, voter behavior, and party politics."


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Past Cycles: 2016    |   2012: Journalistic, Academic   |   2008: Journalistic, 2, Academic    |   2004   |   2000 


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