Dem
46
Ties
2
GOP
52
As you might imagine, we got a lot of letters from folks trying to figure out what went wrong for Kamala Harris and the Democrats:
R.C. in North Hollywood, CA, writes: CNN's exit pollsters asked voters about their financial situation and matched it with their presidential choice:
- Those who said "Better than 4 years ago" broke for Harris by 68%.
- Those who said "About the same": Harris +41%.
- Those who said "Worse than 4 years ago": Trump +64%.
- "Worse" was 46% of voters, "Same" was 30%, "Better" was 24%.
The economy is getting better, but a lot of people are still behind. The pandemic and inflation depleted their savings, and high interest rates are making it very hard to buy a home or pay off debt.
There will be a lot of second-guessing about choices the Democrats made, but the fact is that with that many people feeling that bad about the economy—which really means "their personal finances"—it would have been very, very hard for any Democrat to win.
O.D. in Lisbon, Portugal, writes: I can't help but think that Joe Biden is responsible for this debacle. I haven't seen any reaction from the president so far. Maybe he's angry and bitter because he thinks he could have done better. He's wrong. His candidacy was doomed. By seeking a second term and dropping out so close to the election, he forced the Democrats to rush through a new candidate.
Maybe Kamala was the best candidate given the circumstances, but she wasn't the best the Democrats had to offer. Indeed, she didn't inspire many people in 2020. And this year, she didn't inspire enough, even though she ran a better campaign than I expected (in truth, I didn't expect much from her, so the bar was low to clear).
Biden should have confirmed early that he would not seek a second term so that Democrats could have a meaningful primary. In 2020, he was the hero who prevented a second term for Trump. It turns out he only delayed it.
S.P. in Harrisburg, PA, writes: Let's be honest, Kamala truly had no substance. Trump owned the issues except abortion, and the people remember the economy under the Trump years as being significantly better. This is also a referendum on DEI. The men of this country all know of or have personally experienced a case where an unqualified woman was given a position or promotion that the man was better qualified for. Women voted early, but the men turned out on Election Day.
B.B. in Detroit, MI, writes: I have been saying this to friends and family for years, but yesterday's results offered further support, if not confirmation of the following: The Obamas have to go away! In their own way, they are as divisive as Trump, maybe even more so. I believe that a significant percentage of the polarization of the country can be blamed on them. To be clear, I voted for him twice and might well vote for him again if he were eligible (he's not) and I thought he could win (unlikely), but he and his wife are divisive, polarizing figures that do NOT help the Democrats win elections.
Barack Obama was a remarkably ineffective president, despite his obvious intellect and preternatural speaking talent. With an overwhelming advantage in the Senate, he did nothing about assault weapons, abortion, or gerrymandering, all of which he could have advocated. He spent his capital on health care, which, to be fair, appears to be working reasonably well, but that effort offered a sledgehammer issue to Republicans, which they used to short circuit the remainder of his first term. He offered no significant response to Vladimir Putin's incursion into Crimea, emboldening that dictator rather than confronting him. His response to the economic meltdown was milquetoast.
He made such a good choice for vice president that I hardly believe it was actually his decision. But then, after providing a vehicle for racist backlash for 8 years—and we are a very racist country—he then bypassed his man-of-the-people VP to also provide a vehicle for misogynist backlash against a woman more qualified than him but whom few liked, even many (like me) who voted for her.
The Democratic party trots out Barack and Michelle every election as if that is going to increase their appeal to voters. Can everyone finally admit they DON'T? Both are super-smart accomplished people who project the smartest-person-in-the-room vibe whenever they get behind a microphone. They both talk down to people and otherwise preach to the choir. Who in the world thinks that approach helps with the high school graduates who work at a tire store or sell clothing at a department store (with apologies for the blue-collar stereotypes)? Put yourself in their shoes and listen to a speech by either Obama versus a speech by Trump. Who do you think is talking to you and who is talking at you?
The Democratic Party—and I include Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi with the Obamas—makes one mistake after another, and every mistake costs them another state in the Electoral College. Ohio is gone; Florida is gone; is Pennsylvania (Biden's home state) gone? Obama's initial election, historic though it may be, was badly timed and a therefore a mistake. Choosing Hillary after Obama, instead of before, was a mistake. Replacing Biden late in the campaign was a mistake, and then replacing him with an unknown woman of color was a mistake. Obviously it doesn't help when they are running against a man who lies with every breath, but that is not what a huge number of people see. They feel they are being patronized by the Democrats in general and by the Obamas specifically. Neither Obama has what might be called the common touch. Both come across as elite and effete (descriptors that might well apply to me). And Barack Obama's decision to chastise—chastise, for crying out loud—young Black men for not turning out hurt the Democrats more than it helped. Does anybody in the Democratic establishment see that?
I think Biden would have won in 2016 and I think he would not have done any worse than Harris in 2024. The blue wall might have fallen anyway, but it would have held better for Biden than it did for her.
Thank the Obamas for their service and send them on a 10-year trip around the world.
There, I got that off my chest and can now stop hectoring my wife about it.
A.L in Toronto, ON, Canada, writes: As a computer engineer, it is not lost on me that this is the first presidential election that has been fully impacted by autonomous artificially intelligent bots. This certainly isn't the first election we've had systems at the helm, but one of the first where much of the information people have read on the election was likely generated by a GPT. I personally believe this is the reason for the massive Democratic loss, that there is no one reason: every single voter had a reason perfectly tailored for them, based on the context of their lives. I believe this is yet another moralistic position liberals must wrestle with, as the Republicans are clearly and without a doubt using this tooling to their great benefit. Every single voter was bombarded with content specifically generated for their brains. If Obama was elected with Twitter, Trump was re-elected with ChatGPT.
There are already hundreds of thought pieces out there on this subject. Our view, with the benefit of 48 hours' reflection (admittedly not much), is that this election was about forces that were beyond the control of politicians. The pandemic swept Donald Trump out of office, and then its aftereffects put him right back in office. The whole world was affected by the pandemic in a similar way, and the entire world has reacted in a similar way, often favoring populists and authoritarians but, even more commonly, favoring "something different." That the Democrats took a pasting everywhere, and in nearly every "competitive" race, indicates that this was about something larger than Kamala Harris or her campaign. Long-time Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) didn't lose to a carpetbagging hedge fund manager who lives in Connecticut due to any mistake Kamala Harris made. The voters were angry and he was collateral damage.
We do tend to agree that, in 2024, it was "the economy, stupid." However, we don't agree with the argument that the Democrats should have realized that, and proceeded accordingly. The blue team, from Harris on down, knew that was THE issue. It was not a secret, poll after poll showed it to be the case. The problem is that such insight isn't really actionable. Politicians, even presidents, have relatively little power to affect the economy for the better. They have even less power to affect people's perceptions of the economy. If this was going to be an "economy" election—and that is what it turned out to be—then woe be unto anyone who is associated with the current regime. (Z)