For most of us, the result on November 5 was a real shocker. Despite what the polls predicted, American voters, 66% of those eligible to vote, trooped to the polls and pronounced the verdict: throw the bums out. And they did. Giving a thumbs down to the whole team which dashed the hopes of the sitting vice-president Kamala Harris. Let’s start with the bottom line. Donald Trump received the most votes (76.5 million vs 74 million for Harris), beating Kamala handily in 31 states including all 7 swing states. Adding to the catastrophic defeat at the top of the ticket, the Democrats saw Republicans make inroads not only in traditionally red states, but reliably blue ones as well. Take New York state, blue to its core, in 2020 Trump received 37% of the vote while Joe Biden captured 61%. No surprises there. But look what happened this year. Trump walked away with 44% of the vote, a 7% increase while Harris at 56% lost 5% of Biden’s stash.
So far we’ve been looking at the voters who actually went to the polls and voted. What about that tranche of eligible Americans who stayed home or went fishing in 2024 after voting in 2020. How did that work out for Harris? Judge for yourself. In 2020, Biden ended up with 81 million votes according to “certified” results. In 2024 Harris only pulled in 74 million votes. 7 million less than Biden. Did all those democratic votes go to Trump? In 2020 Trump received 74 million votes. While in 2024, he received 76 million votes, only 2 million more. That leaves 5 million democratic votes recorded in 2020 but MIA in 2024.
There are two alternate theories for what happened to 5 million democratic votes between 2020 and 2024. For conspiracy theorists, did Joe Biden really get the 81 million votes the bean counters in Washington reported? A more realistic view would probably point in another direction. There were 2 million democratic voters who “held their noses” and voted for Trump. The remaining 5 million who voted for Biden in 2020 and were sorely disappointed by Harris didn’t vote for either candidate.
How to explain such a reversal? President Reagan had the answer. One simple question that drove Jimmy Carter out of the White House in 1980. On campaign stops, Ronald Reagan would ask the crowd—”Are you better off than you were 4 years ago“? Then as now, the overwhelming response was: Hell no.
When it comes to simple but successful messaging, Bill Clinton’s rode “It’s the economy stupid” into two terms in the White House. Pollsters claim that Americans decide who to vote for in the grocery store when they’re standing in the check-out line. Why is that important?
In 2023 over 50% of the 120 million households in America, had an annual household income that was less than $75,000. For them going to the grocery store has become a hair-raising experience. The prices of staples like milk, eggs and butter have skyrocketed. Worse still “shrinkflation” has left hapless shoppers shaking their heads. Ever reach for a 5-pound bag of sugar and find that it’s only 4 pounds. What hasn’t changed is the price.
Since inflation has taken a big chunk out of take-home pay, millions of Americans reach for their high-interest credit card. But wait credit card interest rates have risen 40% since 2021. The Biden/Harris administration ushered in rate hikes on most of the services U.S. households have come to rely on. Interest rates on mortgages up 114%, student loan interest rates almost doubled from 4% to 7%, energy prices soared out of sight and state and local tax hikes have put a further strain on household budgets. U.S. consumers are in a sour mood as they watch their debt loads increase. Household debt currently is an eye-popping 17.94 trillion. [Federal Bank of New York] What they probably didn’t want to hear was a democratic convention and its presidential candidate proclaiming joyful times ahead absent the policies to make it happen.
American voters expect all candidates for elected offices, especially presidents, to make promises, the more extravagant the better. And Trump didn’t let them down. How about his promise to end the Ukrainian war in 24 hours or to deport millions of undocumented immigrants on day one. When Trump doesn’t end the war or deport millions on day one will that hurt his popularity? Aside from a few mainstream media pundits who will tut, tut over it, the vast majority of voters won’t remember and won’t care. That’s how it goes. The same voters who demand promises seldom if ever hold it against the victors when they fail to deliver. Even Joe Biden made promises from his basement in 2020. He promised to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour and he promised a public option in Obamacare. After he was elected, both promises disappeared down the black hole where presidential campaign promises go never to be seen again. Kamala’s made a few unconvincing promises —something she called the “opportunity economy.” Most Americans were unimpressed, preferring a few more dollars in their paychecks.
Two other promises — a $6,000 tax credit for newborns only and a $25,000 subsidy for first time home buyers only — never caught on with the electorate. If your kid is older than his birth or you’re on your second home buy, Kamala has nothing to offer you.
On two foreign policy issues that have dogged the Biden/Harris administration, Harris showed the same resistance to the demands of the electorate: she failed to convince even her base much less republicans that she had a solution to the Ukraine disaster. Instead, when she did mention it, she echoed the Biden administration’s failed policy — “[I] will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.” Trouble is 66% of all Americans want the U.S. to back down, force a peace treaty on Ukraine immediately and then in America’s time-honored tradition — vamoose. On the subject of Israel’s brutal war, the best she could do was to repeat the Biden fairy tale that Israel had a right to defend itself. Nor would she promise to stop sending weapons to Israel. Instead, voters heard statements that sounded like thin gruel — “I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza.” As if daring three quarters of her own party who “express a negative view of Israel’s actions [pollster lingo for butt out America]” along with 60% of independents to challenge her. Which they did in droves by either not voting or voting for Trump.
One thing for sure: it was the economy that doomed the democrats. Look no further than Trump snagging a majority of working-class voters. They became outliers in a democrat party that pledges its allegiance to suburban women, LBGTQ voters, professionals and college graduates — the new “rock stars” in the democratic firmament.
Sound familiar? Here’s how the big poobahs in the democrat party thought they had the winning strategy for Hillary Clinton in 2016. “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”[Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority leader] Nice try, Chuck, how did that work in 2016, same way it worked out in 2024.
The mood of Americans as November 5 hove into view probably tells us all we need to know about the results — on that day 3/4 of voters were downright angry and dissatisfied about the direction of the country, one half strongly disapproved of Biden and 46% said they were worse off in the last four years than voters in all previous exit poll have reported. Who can blame them. Harris was joined at the hip to an administration blamed for a widespread cost of living crisis in housing, healthcare and child care, two intractable wars costing U.S. taxpayers billions, an increasing immigration crisis. The mystery is not why Harris lost but how in the world she managed to snag 74 million votes.
The best obituary on the democratic 2024 catastrophe came from Bernie Sanders albeit eight years too late: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
Trump may have won and Harris lost but think about it, the real losers are the American people. Promises made, promises broken. It’s the tale of every election since 1945. Whoever makes the most convincing promises wins. As history teaches us — when the winner walks into the Oval Office, the promises fly out the window.
Voters wanted change. And something did change — the other arm of the war party took over. What didn’t change was the misery: a healthcare system that excels in only one thing —making money, a financial system controlled by billionaires, an energy sector whose middle name is price-gouging and who despite record profits still receives an annual $15 billion taxpayer-funded subsidy (in 2020 Biden handed over an additional $15 billion in federal relief; why not they’re owned by Wall Street, one of Biden’s major donor) let’s not forget to add to this list of federally-endorsed giveaways the growing intrusiveness of the government in alliance with private tech companies like Google and Facebook and a myriad of others intent on eliminating privacy along with free speech and other constitutional guarantees.
What we do know is that Trump won and Harris lost. What many Americans don’t know yet is that as the democratic clown car moves out and the republican clown car moves in, the commitment to business as usual remains steadfast regardless of which party wins. The billionaires who fund the candidates will decide. Count on it. For the people it’s just another day in a high-class banana republic.
