The Miscalculations That Sent Kamala Harris to a Devastating Loss
Her campaign misread an electorate that was more wound up about inflation and immigration than about Donald Trump’s character
Kamala Harris’s advisers felt like they couldn’t believe their luck.
Heading into Election Day, Donald Trump kept making controversial comments they thought would play right into their strategy of showing voters he was unfit for another term. They were optimistic the vice president was on the precipice of victory in a race they viewed as on a knife’s edge. Her final campaign appearance, on the iconic Philadelphia steps from Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky,” would cap the arc of an underdog’s rise.
Instead, their optimism was a sign of how badly the Harris campaign misread an electorate that was more wound up about inflation and immigration than about Trump’s character. Trump punched his return ticket to the White House with a stunning electoral romp that batted away Harris’s attacks and lured voters who believed the country was on the wrong track and blamed President Biden, Harris’s deeply unpopular boss. Her inability to separate herself from him and offer her own specific solutions to Americans’ problems, despite a lavish campaign war chest, was a central reason for her loss.
More broadly,
the party erred in failing to plan a smooth transition from Biden’s presidency to the next generation of younger leaders despite his pledge to do so. Thrusting Harris atop the ticket in July left her campaign ill-prepared to compete against an opponent with a firm grip on the electorate.
In a 15-week campaign, Harris’s advisers knew from the start the fundamentals of the race were against her, but they eventually came to believe that bringing into focus Trump’s character was the only way to neutralize her headwinds.
Voters’ discontent with the direction of the country—including their frustrations with inflation and record illegal border crossings—meant they were looking for a change agent. Harris didn’t feel comfortable coming off as critical of Biden, despite a push from some allies, and her advisers also didn’t think it would work, given her role in the administration.
There were also some cracks within Harris’s campaign operation. The outreach to Black, Latino and working-class voters in swing states came too late and her message to those voters wasn’t clear enough, several Democrats said.
Rep. Adam Smith (D., Wash.) said that Harris and Democrats appeared too close to the party’s progressive flank.
“The extreme left is leading us into a ditch,” Smith said, citing movements to defund the police and to liberalize border policy. “The second problem, of course, is that Harris chose not to distance herself from Biden.”
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