Harris only received five percent of Republican votes — less than the six percent Joe Biden won in 2020 when he beat Trump, as well as the seven percent won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she lost to him. While Harris won independents and moderates, she did so by smaller margins than Biden did in 2020.
Meanwhile, Harris lost households earning under $100,000, while Democratic turnout collapsed. Votes are still being counted, but Harris is on pace to underperform Biden’s 2020 totals by millions of votes.
My take on this is that the DNC has never understood that to win the presidency in the last 20 years you need to be a fire brand.
I think this stared in 2008 with Obama who won I believe because he fired up the base with great speeches about hope and change. It didn’t really happen, BUT the man knew how to give a speech. That got people inspired to do something and they voted.
Bernie was another fire brand - told it like it was and it appealed to a large population.
trump won using the same idea, but just the opposite of hope and change yet it worked. It tapped into a visceral and deep frustration that this country has left them behind.
The modern view of the American president to the population is less of a wonky politician and more of a cheerleader for big ideas, even if those ideas are abhorrent and exceedingly horrifying.
Harris just wasn’t the person to pull this off, she was too wonky and it felt like the entire campaign was playing the old card of “we are not trump” Instead if they really wanted to win they would have found ( 2 years ago) a feisty out spoken progressive leaning firebrand that would have inspired people to vote for something better.
The only reason that (bland) Biden won was because of how badly trump fucked up the Covid response.
I think when she was announced was the candidate, she fired up the case just fine. She was different.
Then she spent the rest of the campaign reassuring people that nothing would change, pissing away that enthusiasm.