Tuesday’s presidential election was the Democrats’ to lose — and that is exactly what happened.
Lynn Schmidt
For quite some time, I had been predicting that former President Donald Trump was going to win this election. The signs came together and into focus the week of Oct. 7.
I was so confident in my prognostication that I wrote this column on Oct. 10.
Here are a few reasons why I think the former and future president Trump won. And maybe more important, why Vice President Kamala Harris lost.
Harris’ campaign was too little too late. Enough of the electorate identified several areas of weakness with Harris. They included her inability to speak authentically on the economy, immigration and border security. And she refused to take responsibility for the failures of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Finally, many voters sensed Harris was to the left of a majority of Americans on cultural issues.
These deficiencies overlapped quite a bit during that one early week in October — with Harris finally sitting down for media interviews, a natural disaster, the anniversary of a war, damaging political ads and the release of issue polling.
On Oct. 7, Harris spoke with “60 Minutes” Bill Whitaker, and the following day she appeared on “The View” with Sunny Hostin.
Harris flopped during her media interviews when asked about the concerns of a majority of voters: the economy and inflation and immigration and the border. She was unable to offer any details on her plans for the country.
With Hoskins, Harris was unable to distance herself from Biden. When asked what she would have done differently than Biden during the past four years, Harris replied, “There is not a thing that comes to mind. Not a thing.”
Whitaker pressed Harris on the administration’s response to the flood of illegal immigrants that entered the country illegally during Biden’s tenure. Harris responded: “The policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem.”
Harris said that she and the president “cut the flow of illegal immigration by half,” which led Whitaker to ask if it was a mistake to allow that flood to happen in the first place — while reminding Harris that the numbers of migrants quadrupled while she was vice president. “Should you have done that earlier?” he asked. Harris punted responsibility to Congress.
Whitaker and Harris discussed economics and inflation. Harris’ solution would be to ask Congress to pass a federal ban on price-gouging for food and groceries. She would expand the child tax credit, offer assistance to people starting a small business, and give first-time homebuyers $25,000 in down payment assistance — which would just raise the cost of homes by the same amount.
When Whitaker asked how she was going to pay for her plan, Harris replied with something about small businesses and investing in the middle class. Whitaker pressed Harris again in which she responded that the rich must “pay their fair share in taxes.” Whitaker had to remind Harris, “We’re dealing with the real world here.”
A Wall Street Journal poll that same week showed Trump beating Harris with swing-state voters on the top three issues facing Americans. When asked, “Between Trump and Harris, who is best able to handle each of the following: the economy, inflation and rising costs, and immigration and border security?” Trump led Harris by 10 percentage points on each of the three. Trump was also outperforming Harris 47% to 45% on who stands up for the American worker.
Harris’ answers in the interviews were obviously not enough to reassure voters and move the needle in the month before the election.
The pervasive sense was that Harris and the Democratic Party were to the left of most Americans on cultural issues, especially when it comes to transgender care and participation in sports.
The Trump campaign ran an ad reminding voters that in her 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Harris supported using taxpayer money to pay for gender confirmation surgeries for transgender people in prison.
The 2024 Gallup survey found nearly 70% of people said transgender athletes should be able to compete only on teams that align with their biological sex.
Harris lost because she was insecure and inauthentic. She could not articulate her vision and plan for the country, nor could she distance herself from an unpopular president. She avoided taking responsibility and was viewed as too culturally progressive to many Americans.
