The senior White House reporter for the Wall Street Journal presents a deeply reported account of the 2020 presidential election that reveals how Donald Trump became the first incumbent in thirty years to lose reelection, and the only candidate in the country's history whose defeat resulted in a violent insurrection.

MICHAEL C. BENDERis the senior White House reporter for the Wall Street Journal whose coverage of President Trump has been recognized for its deep sourcing, balance, and valuable behind-the-scenes portraits of Trump’s administration and presidential campaigns. Bender was awarded the Gerald R. Ford Foundation Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency in 2019 for work that “set a consistently high standard of reporting” and “provided a valuable chronicle of the president, his team, and the movement that has reshaped American politics and national policy.” In 2020, he received the National Press Club award for political analysis for a series of stories that detailed the sights, sounds, and inner workings of Trump campaign rallies. Since 2000, Bender has covered local, state, and national politics for the Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colorado, Dayton Daily News, Palm Beach Post, Tampa Bay Times, and Bloomberg News. He joined the Journal in 2016 and published more than eleven hundred stories about Trump in the next five years. He has also served as an on-air political analyst for CNN. Born and raised in Cleveland with his six younger sisters, Bender graduated from the Ohio State University in 2000 with a degree in history and now lives in Washington with his wife, Washington Post White House bureau chief Ashley Parker, and their two daughters.