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Five Reasons Harris Lost
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks
during her campaign rally in Houston, Texas, October 25, 2024.(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
By Michael R. Strain
November 11, 2024 2:23 PM
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Democrats are reeling in the wake of their decisive electoral defeat. So perhaps we should forgive those who are arguing that President Trump was unbeatable due to factors outside the control of the Democratic Party,
the Biden administration, or the Harris campaign (e.g., global
inflation, sexism).
Vice President Harris could — and probably should — have won last week’s election. I see five reasons why Ms. Harris and her party were so
soundly defeated by President Trump and the Republicans.
First, macroeconomic management. High consumer prices were a huge drag
on support for President Biden. Voters correctly blamed Mr. Biden’s
policies for materially contributing to inflation. Of course, we still
would have experienced some inflation without the president’s policies.
But his policies made it materially worse.
The lesson for Democratic policymakers: Don’t enact policies that are as reckless and irresponsible as the American Rescue Plan of 2021. It is
quite plausible that Ms. Harris would today be president-elect if
inflation had peaked at six percent rather than nine percent.
Second, senior Democratic leaders need to understand that many Americans
think progressives are living on a different cultural planet.
Six examples of the cultural extremism that makes many Americans deeply skeptical of voting for Democrats: The enthusiasm of many progressives
for defunding the police. The enthusiasm of many progressives —
including the Biden administration — for allowing gender-dysphoric young people to undergo questionable chemical and surgical treatments. The
decision not to reopen schools in the fall of 2020. The impression given
by elite universities is that they have switched their mission from
discovering and teaching the truth to social justice activism. Signaling
to individuals that they are complicit in advancing structural racism
because of who they are, not because they have done or said anything
racist. Wanting to relieve successful, college-educated Americans of the obligation to pay back their student loans.
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Don’t underestimate the importance of the following sentiment: I don’t
want people who support progressives’ cultural extremism to be in charge
of my kids’ school, much less the federal government. Fair or unfair, I suspect this is how many swing-state voters weighed their choice in last week’s election.
This is why Ms. Harris’s 2019 declaration that taxpayer dollars should finance transgender surgeries for prison inmates was so damaging — more damaging, I fear, than many Democrats seem to want to admit. But
acknowledging this fundamental mismatch in cultural values and
priorities is an important step Democrats must take if they want to
address the mismatch and rebuild their party and electoral coalition.
The Democrats’ focus on identity politics was a problem before the onset
of the Covid-19 pandemic and George Floyd’s death, but it has
supercharged since then. People see themselves primarily as individuals,
not as members of a demographic group. They don’t like being treated as members of a group rather than as individuals.
The third reason: Many elite progressives seem to have a hard time
practicing intellectual empathy or appreciating the importance of
viewpoint diversity, which resulted in campaign messages that struck me
as counterproductive. Two examples. Many Americans believe that it is reasonable for women in California to be able to have abortions further
into their pregnancies than women in Alabama because voters in
California have different views on this issue than voters in Alabama.
It is reasonable to disagree with this view. It is reasonable to
disagree strongly with this view. But it strikes me as unreasonable to
imply — as progressives often do — that if you hold this view, then you
are morally unenlightened.
Many progressives deeply believe that a second Trump term will present a
grave threat to democracy. But progressives did not win that argument
among swing-state voters. Instead of acknowledging that they lost this argument, Ms. Harris decided to have a large part of her closing message consist of warnings that Mr. Trump would govern as a fascist.
Photos
Campaign Trail 2024
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If you are trying to persuade people who are open to voting for Trump
that they should instead vote for you, it is a bad idea to tell them
that, by considering to cast their vote for Trump, they are effectively considering to be voluntary accomplices to the death of democracy and
the inauguration of a fascist regime.
Fourth, Vice President Harris lost because she made mistakes during the campaign and because her party made mistakes over the past two years.
Harris could have run a “Joe Biden? Screw that guy” campaign. She could have said: “I have the greatest respect for President Biden and all he
has accomplished. But in hindsight, I see that we made a few major
mistakes, particularly by overstimulating the economy and losing control
of the southern border. My administration will take a fundamentally
different approach to those issues.” She chose instead to run as a quasi-incumbent, unable to articulate anything she would do differently
than President Biden. That was a huge mistake.
Ms. Harris could have chosen a moderate, blue-wall governor as her
running mate rather than a Minnesota progressive. The White House, the
media, and Mr. Biden himself could have chosen not to turn the other way
when it became clear that Mr. Biden was not up to running for
reelection. Had Biden dropped out in early 2023, Harris would have been
a stronger nominee, or the Democrats could have run a different,
stronger candidate.
Fifth and finally, the Biden administration lost control of the southern border. Unlike the previous four reasons, Democrats seem to be
internalizing this problem.
I am not an expert in public opinion, election analysis, or electoral
strategy. And there is a lot we don’t know about the election due to the
lack of high-quality exit polls. When the professionals get the data
they need, they might decisively refute some of my arguments above. The
leaders of the Democratic Party should have a similar attitude. They
need to be open to the message voters are sending them and open to
considering painful changes to their ideological views and their views
on economic policy. Concluding that President Trump’s stunning victory
was inevitable may doom Democrats to a repeat of history.
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A Refutation of the ‘Trump Won Because of Racism’ Idea
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Michael R. Strain
Michael R. Strain — Mr. Strain holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in
Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. @MichaelRStrain
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