Yes, Biden won the overall popular vote by more than 7 million votes. But in the Electoral College, the part that matters, he won the three decisive states of Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin by a total of about 43,000 votes. Only about 80,000 votes separated Biden from Trump in Pennsylvania. In order to make sure these narrow results were accurate and would hold as all the votes were counted, media outlets waited until the Saturday following Election Day to call the race. That’s not winning “handily” or showing unusual electoral strength. That a seven-million-vote win could be called “close” in any way is a different matter, but it is the system we have.

Additionally, the 2022 election results have been overestimated as an indicator of strength for Biden and Democrats heading into 2024. It is true that Democrats minimized losses and even gained a seat in the Senate, an excellent outcome for the party in power in a midterm. But the conditions that led to that outcome could be extremely difficult to recreate: Democrats held on to the Senate largely due to Republicans nominating objectively weak candidates, and abortion was unusually important following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in June, a once-in-50-years event.