3 hours Ago
While there is no question Donald Trump won the 2024 election, it was not a landslide. Trump made gains compared to his performance in 2020 almost everywhere, even in traditionally blue states. Trump won the popular vote by less than 2%, the closest election since the contest between George W.
Bush and Al Gore in 2000. A few hundred-thousand votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is all it would have taken for Kamala Harris to have won the Electoral College. The United States did not become a pure MAGA nation; it is still evenly divided, but the slim majority now favors Trump instead of the Democrats.
While the Democrats could have done things differently, Monday morning quarterbacking is much easier than executing in real time. In retrospect, it’s easy to say President Joe Biden should have been forced to hold to his promise of being a one-term, transitional president to a new generation. People around Biden should have been more sensitive to concerns about his age, but changes are harder to notice when you see someone every day.
A competitive primary could have helped Democrats bring fresh new faces into the spotlight that would not have been tied to the unpopular Biden administration. But at the time, it was not irrational to think that Biden, who had decisively defeated Trump four years earlier, would have been able to win again. Biden passed some of the most significant legislation in decades, and when Trump left office, the economy was in shambles and COVID-19 was killing tens of thousands of people a month.
Trump also tried to stage a coup to remain in power, and was under investigation for multiple felonies. Who knew 34 felony convictions would help Trump? Biden’s late exit from the race meant that Vice President Harris was the only viable option for Democrats, and the party rallied around her in a display of party unity that hadn’t been seen in a long time. Harris grew into the campaign impressively, rarely making a wrong step.
While she should have been prepared to say she would have done something differently than the president she served, trying to break with Biden too much could have also backfired – Gore’s decision to distance himself from President Bill Clinton in the 2000 is an example. Americans on the left argue she should have distanced herself from Biden on the war in Gaza, while Israel’s supporters claim she should’ve picked Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as a running mate.
We’ll never know which direction she could’ve moved to get a better outcome, but we should be careful about drawing too many definitive conclusions from the outcome of such a closely contested race. The Harris campaign had a much better ground game than Trump’s campaign. It was equally adept at fundraising and targeting small donors.
Focusing on the swing states, she dominated the debate with Trump in September and even appeared on Fox News. While Harris should have gone on the Joe Rogan podcast, Trump demonstrated weakness by refusing a second debate, as well as the traditional “60 Minutes” interview, though Trump excelled on nontraditional media. By any objective measure, Harris ran a better campaign than Trump, which is impressive, given Trump has been campaigning for nine years while Harris took over someone else’s campaign and only had 100 days to make up lost ground.
The fact that Harris lost only half as much ground in the swing states, where both candidates actively campaigned, than in the rest of the country suggests that her campaign advantage was worth a few points, just not enough to win. While political scientists will be studying this race for years, the worldwide anti-incumbent trend that has led to defeat for almost every sitting government regardless of ideology was probably the most significant factor. The persistence of high prices, even after inflation was brought under control, also played a major role.
The Trump campaign and its associated super pacs flooded the airwaves with a relentless effort to focus on the immigration crisis at the southern border, which benefited Trump even though he had undermined a bipartisan deal to fix the border, and border crossings had fallen dramatically this year. The Trump campaign also stoked people’s fears about transgender athletes. It was not obvious that those issues would resonate more with voters than abortion bans and threats to democracy.
While many Democrats are discouraged, Trump’s victory does provide opportunities. Progressive Democrats, such as U.S.
Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, should put together a package of legislation designed to help the working class, such as raising the minimum wage, making union-friendly appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, and instituting anti-monopoly policies, and essentially dare the Republicans to turn it down. If they don’t, working class hopes will be realized, and Democrats should get some credit, and if they do (more likely), Republican hypocrisy should undermine the party’s appeal to the working class.
The Electoral College can exaggerate electoral victories and create a false mandate. Victors who believe that tend to overreach, sparking a reaction, which is why the party that wins the presidency often suffers losses in the next midterm election. Democrats are in a bit of a quandary; should they save Trump from himself by resisting his worst impulses, or should they let Trump get his way, with the idea that his policies will be so disastrous that the electorate will turn on him? While unleashing chaos is tempting, Democrats should put the country first and restrain Trump where possible.
Elections provide feedback to politicians, and how the parties learn from that feedback may determine who wins the next election. Democrats are often hesitant to offend anyone, so they are seen as too political or weak. One of the characteristics Trump supporters love about him is that he doesn’t seem to care what others think.
Democrats also need to govern effectively where they have power, by not allowing cities to be overrun by homeless people or shoplifters. Democrats need to have the courage to resist bowing to every special interest group while Republicans need to have the courage to resist the inevitable excesses of a second Trump term. Democrats need to learn how to reach voters who don’t consume conventional news, while Republicans need to understand their victory does not mean all of their policies will be popular.
The party that learns the right lessons will probably win the next election. Kent James is a member of East Washington’s borough council..
