The Democrats suffered a bitterly disappointing defeat, and the debate continues as to why it happened.
Amid the opportunistic finger-pointing and evidence-free claims that Vice President Kamala Harris could have won if she had done this or that, there is a genuine search for an explanation of what happened. Which answer Democrats find most persuasive could greatly affect the party’s direction as it tries to win again.
This debate will obviously continue for some time, and causation is difficult to isolate. But one way to think about it is to break the question down.
How much of Harris’ weakness as a candidate or his campaign strategy was the defeat? How much was Donald Trump’s power? How much was Joe Biden’s record about? How much was the brand of the Democratic Party usually? And how much was due to broader structural factors Global anti-authoritarian trends?
It’s possible that all of these played some role in the results, especially since issues like inflation may resonate across all of them. But let’s go through them.
Was Harris an unusually weak candidate?
Any candidate who loses is clearly defined as a loser. So naturally, many Democratic fingers are pointing at Harris. But how believable is it?
Harris had some real strengths: his record as a former prosecutor, his strong fundraising and the fact that he was a fresh face. But many had deep doubts about his prospects.
Harris’s political rise in deep-blue San Francisco, and later statewide in California, cultivated support among the Democratic elite; He never had to run in a swing state and therefore never developed a political style designed to appeal to swing voters. It was unclear what those swing voters would do to him entering the 2024 race. (The only time he faced a decent Republican opponent earlier this year — his first run for California attorney general, in 2010 — he narrowly won.)
His campaign strategy was cautious and defensive. In his previous presidential campaign and during the vice-presidency, he held several jobs High-profile interviews This went poorly, prompting him to avoid such interviews. In that bid, he was happy to make the case against Trump on the debate stage, but he was less comfortable when he was grilled. He often speaks in talking points and platitudes.
He also had a record. When Harris was trying to win the 2020 Democratic primary, he ran on the left, taking several policy positions (e.g. Banning fracking) which did not seem politically sustainable. Trump’s team used a clip from that campaign, when he said How he worked to ensure transgender inmates in California could access gender-affirming care, in a heavily funded attack ad. it is ended with the line: “The orange is for them/them. President Trump is for you.”
His campaign strategy has been to try to counter the center, denying or simply avoiding his past positions, sending signals to the business community that he will be friendly with them, while using former Republican Liz Cheney as a Republican validator. He has not broken with the Biden administration or the mainstream Democratic consensus on anything significant. He also did not run as a bold populist or progressive.
Finally, there is gender and race. Many wondered if the voter backlash against her was due to sexism – especially given the early numbers where the swing against her was strongest among men. D New York Times reports That Trump team ads often showed Harris “laughing or dancing in a colorful blouse and pink pants,” because Trump’s goal was to “make him look like a lightweight.”
But is Harris getting too much blame? Evidence suggests the man he replaced at the top of the ticket, Joe Biden, would have done worse. one Post-election survey It found that Trump would have beaten him by 7 percentage points nationally. Perhaps he did a decent job of playing a bad hand: the record of the Biden administration.
Was it Biden’s fault?
Biden’s initial attempt to run for re-election — before it was derailed by his disastrous debates — limited the time and options available to Harris. But the biggest problem may be that he was his vice president and his administration was very unpopular.
Blueprint, a Democratic polling initiative, Published research Two of the three most effective arguments for pushing swing voters away from Harris are that “inflation was too high under the Biden-Harris administration” and “too many immigrants crossed the border illegally under the Biden-Harris administration.”
Polls throughout the year showed that inflation and immigration were Democrats’ biggest weaknesses. So part of the party’s second-guessing will naturally involve whether Biden should have made different policy choices to produce different results in those areas.
Biden did not cause inflation, but his American rescue plan made it worse, resulting in higher prices and the need for larger interest rate cuts than would otherwise have occurred.
His administration was also slow to adjust, and although a “soft landing” without a recession eventually resulted, voters resented the permanent high prices.
On the border, too, Biden pivoted only belatedly. After a massive spike in the number of unauthorized immigrants arriving at the border in 2021 and beyond, Democrats in blue states and cities struggled to deal with the logistics of so many arrivals, and a public backlash ensued. In late 2023, Biden tried to pass a border security bill through Congress, but failed — due to opposition from Donald Trump.
By mid-2024, a combination of an agreement with Mexico and new executive orders seems likely Finally cut On the border crossing. But Biden could have done more earlier, limiting the effectiveness of immigration as an attack on Harris.
Finally, Israel’s war in Gaza bitterly divided the Democratic Alliance. There was probably no way to please everyone here, and voting It doesn’t show A major reason swing voters turned against Harris. But the ugly controversy over Biden’s support for Israel (and Harris’ support for Biden’s policies) could hurt him in Michigan and dampen the left’s enthusiasm for him. It’s unlikely to be decisive, but it certainly didn’t help.
Was Trump an unusually strong candidate?
The political conventional wisdom has generally been that Trump is a weak candidate holding back Republicans — that his 2016 victory hinged on the Electoral College; that he was quite unpopular as president; Voters rejected him and his party in 2018, 2020 and (sort of) 2022; And the GOP is taking a huge risk by nominating him again after he tried to steal the last presidential election and was impeached four times.
But Trump may be unusually well-positioned to take advantage of dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s record on the economy and immigration.
Trump’s persona as a celebrity businessman, who many voters see as particularly savvy on the economy, has given him an advantage in the polls. Since his first campaign. That wasn’t enough to save him in the chaos of 2020, but given what’s happened since then, many Americans look back on Trump’s governing record more favorably. Voters have previously given him credit for a strong economy and low inflation environment from 2017 to 2019, though did not really blame him for the pandemic. Frequent focus groups The idea came back Voters who hated the Biden economy and thought Trump could fix it.
Indeed, Trump’s performance among many down-ballot Republican candidates in key races — in part due to split-ticket voting, in part due to Trump voters simply not voting on down-ballots — suggests that there was a significant bloc of “I don’t like” Republicans. A lot, but the economy was better under Trump” voters.
On immigration, too, there was a stunning swing of public opinion to the right during Biden’s tenure, as arrivals at the border increased, which could play to Trump’s advantage.
Was this a reaction against the Democratic Party moving too far to the left?
A theory floating around is that the results show that the public is punishing the Democratic Party for moving too far to the left.
Josh Baro made this argument A substack postBlue “raises” far-left policies as reasons for public frustration about crime, schooling, and trans rights, along with weak democratic governance in states and cities. Perhaps that explains some of the disproportionate swings against Harris we’ve seen in deep-blue states like New York, as well as progressive prosecutors losing and a tough-on-crime ballot proposal. Passing in California.
A counterpoint to this is that Democrats’ swing-state Senate candidates have done well — several of them have won even though Harris lost their states — and even in New York, Democrats are backlash. Several House seats were flipped in New York. This could be read to suggest the problem has less to do with the Democratic Party and more to do with the top of the ticket.
Still, Democrats likely lost the national popular vote as well as the presidency, so it’s hard to argue that the party’s political position is optimal.
Was it just due to a global trend?
Finally, another school of thought holds that the resulting interpretation is not false at all in the United States. Perhaps this is the latest example of a global trend The incumbents are doing badly Democracies held elections in post-pandemic years. Inflation as a global trend due to supply-side constraints and foreign crises is a large part of the cause of that global struggle.
“Every ruling party facing an election in a developed country this year has lost its share of the vote, the first time this has happened,” John Burn-Murdoch. As reported for the Financial Times. “It is possible that there is no policy or set of personalities that can overcome the current global wave of anti-authoritarianism.”
Still, it’s worth noting that Trump won decisive swing states by just 2 percentage points or less. On the one hand, it might suggest that Democrats have done a surprisingly good job amid structural headwinds, starting from behind and closing the gap as much as possible — even if it’s not enough in the end.
On the other hand, it may suggest that more can be done. Was it really luck that over the last four years the Democrats could do absolutely nothing to improve their margin by another 2 points, no matter how strong the headwinds?
Whatever the answer, Democrats have two years until their next chance to take back one branch of the federal government — and a lot in between.
