Here we are again, watching the news, seeing a title we haven’t seen since 2016: “President-Elect Trump”. Donald Trump won the 2024 Presidential election, carrying 312 electoral votes and winning all 7 widely accepted swing states, according to the Associated Press. Not only that, but Trump defied almost all expectations by winning the popular vote, something a Republican candidate has not done since George Bush in 2004. So the question must be asked: is America shifting to the right? And if not, why did Trump perform so much better in 2024 than he did in 2020, or even 2016 for that matter?
Firstly, yes, America shifted to the right in the 2024 election. In fact, over 90 percent of counties voted more Republican than they did in 2020, according to the New York Times. It wasn’t just red states that voted more for Trump. Trump gained the most ground in Democratic strongholds such as Illinois, New York, California and New Jersey. Florida, widely accepted as a swing state in 2016, had a wider margin of victory for Trump (13.1%) than New York did for Harris (11.8%). According to the New Jersey Monitor, the economy was the primary driver of so many Americans’ shift to the Republican party. An October 2024 Gallup poll found that only 26% of Americans thought that the economy was “fair, good, or excellent”, and NBC exit polls found that the economy was the primary issue for voters in this election. Simply put, Americans are fed up with the economy and current administration. Americans voted with their wallets after years of high inflation, high prices for basic necessities like groceries, and high interest rates and housing prices. A CBS interview with independent voters in Pennsylvania who ended up voting for Trump found that the economy was their biggest concern, and recent signs of slight improvement doesn’t change that. One small part of the interview exemplifies it: CBS Interviewer – Scott Pelley: “Inflation is down more than half, interest rates are falling, mortgage rates are falling, wages are going up. Are you not feeling that?” Voter – Roz Werkheiser: “I don’t feel it. No, I don’t feel it. I don’t feel it at all. Everybody I talk to, nobody’s wages went up. But we had four years of this. I mean, four years. Gas was super high. Yes, it just went down now, but what– the past four– three and a half years it was up.”
The truth is, voters have not felt in their pockets what the politicians have been pushing in their speeches. Even if voters did manage to feel the benefits of this alleged economic rebound, it would be a crime to ignore the last three and a half years of terrible economic policy that led to some of the worst personal inflation in modern American history.
The main issue for the Kamala Harris campaign on the issue of the economy was twofold. First of all, she is the sitting Vice President to a President with widely hated economic performance. Secondly, she hardly focused on the economy enough, and when she did, it was either through ill-thought out plans or plans she stole from the Trump campaign. For example, Harris repeatedly floated the idea of price controls to combat “price-gouging”, a policy she thought would resonate with people hit hardest by her administration’s rampant inflation. However, her proposal was likened to price control policies of the past, a historically terrible economic policy that has not been effective any time they have been tried, according to the Cato Institute. When she did propose a favorable economic policy, such as the “no tax on tips” policy, she rode from the coattails of the Trump campaign, which has found to have much higher economic favorability rankings as a result.
The focus on abortion also weakened Harris’s campaign. Jeanette Hoffman, a Republican Political Strategist, commented saying, “Abortion is an important issue, yes, but to focus your entire campaign on a woman’s right to choose at the expense and exclusion of every other major issue, is just a losing formula.” From this election, the Democrats need to learn that most people will not vote for them no matter how many times they call Trump a fascist dictator, or no matter how many times they fearmonger the issue of abortion, despite the fact that the Executive Branch has little to no power over the issue. Even if democrats were effective in deceiving the electorate to vote for them because of abortion rights, it is still a losing strategy when looking at the base they are trying to appeal to. NBC exit polling showed that Latino Men went to Trump by 55%, the first time a Republican has won the demographic in a millenia. Part of the reason could be social values embraced by democrats such as abortion, a losing issue among a latino electorate that is overwhelmingly Catholic. Not to mention issues such as transgenderism and gender identity pronouns, where Latinos are much more conservative socially.
Democrats lost. They lost because they tried to pander to voting blocs that are inherently at odds with each other. They lost because they did not focus on the issues that Americans actually care about, and when they did, they resorted to ill-informed cop-out answers that seemed disingenuous at best. They lost because they ran a campaign on fear mongering, and slapped the label of fascist, racist, or sexist anyone that dared to disagree with them. They lost because their candidate, Kamala Harris, hid away from interviews and when she did make the rare appearance, only did so on a friendly network who could conveniently edit her answers when she made a misstep. Democrats lost because they fundamentally misunderstood the American electorate and what they care about. Once they get off their moral high horse, stepping down to the ground where the American people actually are, maybe they will be able to win an election again.
