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Writer's pictureKaren Young

Kamala got crushed. How? Why?



Kamala Harris lost – let me count the ways.


• All seven swing states

Gen Z

Women


This wasn’t about swing voters. Trump took chunks out of nearly every group that Democrats thought were the strongest parts of their base. Harris still won many of these groups overall, but Trump increased his percentages of all of them compared to 2020. Republicans also won a larger share of votes in every state in 2024 compared to 2020.


Why she lost so badly


It’s true that when an incumbent President is presiding over a bad economy, no matter their role in it, they typically lose. But both the Democrats’ history, and the horrible Biden/Harris campaign, made it worse.


This reckoning was long in the making. The Democrats either initiated or went along with the key policies, like NAFTA, that have hurt the poor and the working class so much, especially since the 1990’s. Support from their base kept getting softer over time, as they saw the party identifying more with elites and doing anything to help them.


Since the pandemic sent prices for necessities – rent, gas, food – soaring, Democrats didn’t even acknowledge the pain was real, much less offer any credible or immediate solutions. We saw article after article asking why when economists said everything was fine, some people mysteriously kept complaining.


The Democrats lost precious time trying to prop up Biden’s candidacy. Then, when she took the reins, Kamala Harris only amplified the sense that Democrats were completely out of touch with reality and had no solutions.


One example is her offer on housing, the $25K gift to help people make a down payment. This literally would do nothing to help prospective homebuyers. Most homes are unaffordable by way more than $25K. And no down payment can help regular people compete with the over-asking, all-cash offers from investors and the rich.


How Trump won people over


Meanwhile, Trump was talking about how he would cut taxes on Social Security and overtime, and create housing by deporting immigrants, freeing up wherever they were living. He focused on the problems people cared about most, and presented easily-understood solutions to those problems, even if they aren’t actually good or realistic solutions.


Living in Wisconsin, I saw innumerable political ads. The GOP focused on several key spots with video clips of Harris herself. Her support of “Bidenomics.” How she would provide “every transgender prisoner” with free gender-affirming surgery. How she “couldn’t think of anything” she would do differently than Biden. The ads were devastating. Her ads about abortion, democracy, and the opportunity economy didn’t seem like they were part of the same contest.


It’s hard to imagine why Democrats thought they could win by focusing on secondary issues rather than the issues people cared about most, and by not creating any contrast with Biden.


Democrats’ brand is not just damaged – it’s toxic


Final turnout numbers are not in, so take this with a grain of salt. But a recent episode of On Point said it looks like overall 2024 turnout was down significantly. This includes people who left their top spot blank, while voting in downballot races. Trump got 2 million fewer votes in 2024 than in 2020. So this election is not the landslide for him than it appears at first glance.


Trump’s big victory came, rather, from the fact that while Trump lost 2 million, Kamala lost 8 million votes, compared to what Biden got in 2020. The engine of Trump’s victory was clearly lack of enthusiasm for Kamala and the Democrats, more than love for Trump and Republicans.


Kamala lost less badly in swing states. I attribute this to people, like me, holding their nose and voting for her because they didn’t want to cost Democrats the election. In many other non-swing states, including their urban areas, Harris lost by more.


When I was working in radio, if a station lost its audience this comprehensively, the owners would not just change the format (say, from rock to country). They would change the call letters. The station’s very name would have been considered too toxic to retain.


Next - where they might go from here.


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