Hard lessons from a tough election

It was a presidential election befitting the past four years, unprecedented and contentious. Temperatures ran high on both sides, fueling turnout estimated to be the highest since 1900, when 73.7 percent of the electorate cast ballots. Younger voters, age 18‒29, made their voices heard in historic numbers, and mail-in voting broke records in states around the nation, owing largely to health concerns over the pandemic. Battle lines were drawn over the handling of the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting economic fallout; national protests over racial inequity; the future of the Affordable Care Act; climate change; and Supreme Court nominees.