The night before the 2024 US election, polls were tight. With the margins in most swing states coming down to the 2%, many began fretting about the possibility of another Bush v Gore situation.
Come the evening of the 6th, this would seem nothing more than a wishful fantasy, with Donald Trump achieving a landslide victory across the electoral college and the popular vote, the first to do so while being criminally indicted.
As Kamala Harris conceded from the race with the words ‘do not despair’, Democrat finger-pointing began, leaving the question, what went so wrong?
Personality vs policy
Most Americans voted on policy rather than personal qualities. Harris ultimately misunderstood this aspect of the American public, running much of her campaign on opposition to Trump rather than placing her policy at the forefront.
| Column % | DEM | GOP | IND/OTH |
| Candidate’s positions on issues | 76% | 87% | 78% |
| Candidate’s personal qualities | 24% | 13% | 22% |
| Column % 2024 vote choice |
Harris | Trump | Other |
| Candidate’s positions on issues | 71% | 90% | 74% |
| Candidate’s personal qualities | 29% | 10% | 26% |
Trump also succeeded in political communication where Harris failed. Economic policy polled as the top issue for voters in 2024. Though Harris arguably had a more comprehensive set of policies, they were laid out in a detailed 82-page document. While this may be ideal for the average modern politics buff, it is unlikely that the undecided voter will go to the effort to read it.
On the contrary, Trump drilled down on one simple ‘short and sweet’ policy which appealed to voters; raising tariff taxes. Though this policy will likely raise inflation, the active and persistent acknowledgement of the concerns of the American public proved successful.
A key issue that the Harris campaign concerned itself with was reinstating abortion rights. However, there seemed to be a miscalculation of how abortion being on the ballot separately might affect voters.
Essentially, if a voter was in favour of establishing the right to abortion and Trump as president, they could have both. Multiple states that went red voted in support of abortion rights, and this is particularly telling in the likes of Arizona and Nevada, key swing states.
political base
A political base is a candidate’s core support, essentially the voters who are ‘a given’. This is your Vermonts and Alabamas. Trump understood his base and did not overly concern himself with appealing to Democrat voters.
On the contrary, Harris seemed to become preoccupied with appealing to GOP voters and failed. It seems that chasing the elusive Dick Cheney voter was unsuccessful, with there actually being a -1% shift in registered Republicans who voted Democrat compared to 2020.
In her attempts to appeal to the Right, it seemed all Harris actually succeeded in was alienating the left. Having Liz Cheney on the campaign trail didn’t resonate with Democrat voters. Proposing a Republican in her cabinet didn’t resonate with Democrat voters. In a time of extreme partisan politics, country over party didn’t resonate with Democrat voters.
This is most apparent in the margins of the Latino and Hispanic vote, which saw a record-breaking 14-point increase in favour of Trump compared to 2020. This is also evidenced in the likes of the typically Democrat stronghold NYC constituencies of Queens and The Bronx, where Harris lost 11% of the vote from 2020.
Harris also did not do well with the demographic of younger men. In Pennsylvania, Trump received 56% of the votes from men under 30 as opposed to Harris’ 38%, a group Biden won by 9 points.
Inherited weakness from biden’s presidency
With Biden’s approval ratings having been negative since September 2021, it is no secret that public opinion on the Biden administration is not particularly favourable.
Though currently, the US economy is on an upward trajectory (something Trump will no doubt lay claim to once inaugurated) the economy felt bad to constituents. Ultimately, voters do not care about the growth of the gross domestic product when milk is $5.
Biden was pushed out for being grossly unpopular; then Harris spent the next 100 days running a campaign saying she wouldn’t do anything differently, and reminding voters that she was instrumental in all of Biden’s decision-making.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of [what I would do differently to Biden] and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.”
Kamala Harris on ABC’s ‘The View’, October 8, 2024.
The remnants of the Biden administration appeared to particularly impact voters’ perceptions of Harris as an individual; there seemed to be a distinct disconnect between voters’ opinions of the Democratic Party and its candidate.
Simply put: people didn’t like her. It’s not even that Trump did dramatically well, getting 5 million votes less than Biden did in the 2020 election, voters just didn’t show up for Harris.
This can be seen in the incredibly tight margin that the GOP won the House (only six seats in it), as opposed to the landslide defeat in the Electoral College.
This contrast is particularly damning in cities such as Dearborn, Michigan. Trump won by a respectable enough margin of 6%, yet voters opted for Democratic candidates across Congress. Elissa Slotkin won the Senate vote by just over 4%, and Rashida Tlaib won the House by a whopping 32%.
what does this mean going forward?
Though we’ve just witnessed the worst Democrat defeat since 1988, all is not lost. I, for one, would not be surprised to see a shift in power in the Democrat’s favour in the 2026 midterms.
When analysing these results, it would be foolish to ignore the aspect of misogyny that plagues America, but we also must not fall into the trap of point-blank blaming bias and third-party voters for what was ultimately a failed campaign.
For now, we’ve just got to hope that checks and balances do their job throughout Trump’s second term, and keep dreaming about the possibility of a woman as President of the United States.