POTUS 2024 - Harris vs Trump - General Election Discussion

[RainMaker]

I think calling the Democrats a "good-faith broker" is a stretch. They certainly ran on democracy, but they absolutely don't believe in it and I think the public saw right through it.

People vote based on how they view their life. Democrats ran on the establishment and norms. But if those things aren't benefiting you, why would you care? If you can't pay rent, why are you concerned that someone crapped on Nancy Pelosi's desk? If you can't afford groceries, why do you care if the candidate is saying vulgar things? Your family comes first.

And Trump of course won't fix any of that. But he at least acknowledged the issues and offered up his solutions. Compare that to the alternative telling you everything is good and running entirely on the same "orange man bad" tactic they've been running for 8 years while simultaneously campaigning and promoting endorsements from objectively worse people than Trump.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by dubb93

Her campaign sucked. I really don’t know what you want us to say about it at this point but I’d take anything that prick saved to say on Tucker Carlson with a grain of salt because it proves my point exactly. I don’t know that any campaign would have altered the results. I hope you get what you want out of the next four years. Weren’t you basically a one issue voter? I hope Trump brings what you want him to Palestine. I have serious fucking doubts but maybe he can bring some hope and change to those people in a few months.

Not a one issue voter but genocide is a line I won't cross. And I didn't vote for Trump either so there is nothing from him I want out of the next 4 years.

I don't believe that this was inevitable. I think running someone who was behind Andrew Yang in 2020 is a bad choice. There are a lot of popular Democrats in the country who won elections. This feels like a way to cope for people like you who have been wrong for years about Biden and the Democrats and saw it blow up in your face. No one likes to feel dumb.

[jcard]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I think calling the Democrats a "good-faith broker" is a stretch. They certainly ran on democracy, but they absolutely don't believe in it and I think the public saw right through it.

People vote based on how they view their life. Democrats ran on the establishment and norms. But if those things aren't benefiting you, why would you care? If you can't pay rent, why are you concerned that someone crapped on Nancy Pelosi's desk? If you can't afford groceries, why do you care if the candidate is saying vulgar things? Your family comes first.

And Trump of course won't fix any of that. But he at least acknowledged the issues and offered up his solutions. Compare that to the alternative telling you everything is good and running entirely on the same "orange man bad" tactic they've been running for 8 years while simultaneously campaigning and promoting endorsements from objectively worse people than Trump.

Nowhere did I either defend or promote the Democratic Party or any of its members. This type of binary reflexiveness is a large part of why we have reached this point, and a too common detour into unproductive dialog. I stated my thoughts; any further meaning drawn from my words is solely a product of unwarranted inferrence.

[JPhillips]

NC Supreme Court just blocked the certification of a Dem for one of the seats. The GOP just doesn't believe in elections anymore unless they win.

[Brian Swartz]

Everyone thought I was ridiculous for suggesting it, but here comes the I told ya sos. Biden says he thinks he could have won if he hadn't dropped out.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Everyone thought I was ridiculous for suggesting it, but here comes the I told ya sos. Biden says he thinks he could have won if he hadn't dropped out.

I thought that too … until the first 10-15 min of the first debate

[sovereignstar v2]

Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind

[GrantDawg]

He didn't, with all the power of a sitting president and head of party, have enough strength and political capital to stave off an attempt to remove him from the ticket. That should have been infinitely easier than winning the election.

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[Lathum]

What is he supposed to say?

[RainMaker]

Sorry for costing you all the election and allowing Trump to take power again.

[flere-imsaho]

I accept your apology, RainMaker.

[GrantDawg]

Hey. That was a big move. The first step in the journey, Rainmaker, is admitting your mistakes. I'm proud of your growth.

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[flere-imsaho]

Now that we're months past the election, I've been looking for a good data-driven post-mortem and can recommend reading this one in Vox here.

It takes the form of an interview with David Shor, a prominent pollster/data scientist for Democrats, and so some of the qualitative slant is Democratic, but there's a lot of data and analysis of data that's helpful for figuring out a) how the election turned out the way it did and b) what it means for the Democratic Party going forward.

It's worth a (long) read, but the tldr is that mainly Democrats need to do a better job of identifying and talking about the issues that really matter to voters at the time these elections come around. Or, from my perspective, AOC continues to be right about how to win elections.

Some clips I thought were especially good/informative:

But across all of these, there’s a consistent story: The most engaged people swung toward Democrats between 2020 and 2024, despite the fact that Democrats did worse overall.

Meanwhile, people who are the least politically engaged swung enormously against Democrats. They’re a group that Biden either narrowly won or narrowly lost four years ago. But this time, they voted for Trump by double digits.

And people who are politically disengaged — like every other subgroup of people this election — overwhelmingly listed the cost of living as the thing they were the most concerned about.

But it can’t just be inflation. Politically disengaged voters went from being a roughly neutral group in 2020 to favoring the Republicans by about 15 points in 2024. But during the Obama era, this was a solidly Democratic group, favoring us by between 10 and 15 points. So there’s also this long-term trend that goes beyond inflation or social media. Our coalition has been transitioning from working-class people to college-educated people.

If we look at 2016 to 2024 trends by race and ideology, you see this clear story where white voters really did not shift at all. Kamala Harris did exactly as well as Hillary Clinton did among white conservatives, white liberals, white moderates.

But if you look among Hispanic and Asian voters, you see these enormous double-digit declines. To highlight one example: In 2016, Democrats got 81 percent of Hispanic moderates. Fast-forward to 2024; Democrats got only 57 percent of Hispanic moderates, which is really very similar to the 51 percent that Harris got among white moderates.

As to whether this is inevitable, I would say that to some degree getting 94 percent of any ethnic group is unsustainable. But I think the losses that we’re seeing among nonwhite voters and immigrants is symptomatic of this broader, ideological polarization that Democrats are suffering from.

Fundamentally, 40 percent of the country identifies as conservative. Roughly 40 percent is moderate, 20 percent is liberal, though it depends exactly how you ask it. Sometimes it’s 25 percent liberal. But the reality is that, to the extent that Democrats try to polarize the electorate on self-described ideology, this is just something that plays into the hands of Republicans.

The issue that voters cared the most about was overwhelmingly the cost of living. I really cannot stress how much people cared about the cost of living. If you ask what’s more important, the cost of living or some other issue picked at random, people picked the cost of living 91 percent of the time. It’s really hard to get 91 percent of people to click on anything in a survey.

On the one hand, voters say they thought that the Democratic candidate was too liberal. But on the other hand, in our randomized control trials, the best testing advertisements were more compatible with progressive critiques of the Harris campaign. The single best testing ad by the Kamala Harris campaign was one where she looked directly into the camera and said something like, “I know the cost of living is too high, and I’m going to fix that by building more housing and taking on landlords who are charging too much.”

My initial thoughts, post-read:

1. National elections, especially for POTUS, are won on vibes. It sounds obvious, but you need to ascertain what really matters to voters that cycle and hammer on it. Democrats for decades now have taken the wrong lessons from Bill Clinton, thinking the way forward was this "third way" bullshit, when he won his first election by hammering on "it's the economy, stupid" and then goaded the Republicans into showing they couldn't be trusted with government in the run-up to 1996. AOC is the foremost Democratic politician who understands this and it's likely because, shocker, she engages with her constituents relentlessly, not because she raises a lot of money.

2. A relentless focus on identity politics drives big chunks of the electorate away, even if they agree with the concepts. Let's take a topic that's important to me - free school lunch (and breakfast). Instead of bleating on and on about why it's important because equity, and supporting immigrant communities, and supporting underserved communities, and defending the cost vs. other programs, better to take a Tim Walz-esque common sense approach and say "why the fuck wouldn't you want all kids to be able to have lunch, or to start the day with a healthy breakfast? What the fuck is wrong with you? You're fucking weird" and move on.

3. We can blame social media all we like, but it's a reality and, realistically, it's not rocket science. Again, engage where the voters are, and if they're on TikTok, then that's where you need to go. A well-written, ghost-written op-ed in the NYT isn't cutting it anymore.

Anyway, interested in thoughts from others that aren't merely Democrat-bashing (RainMaker) or concern trolling (Edward).

[bhlloy]

Yeah, I saw that as well and thought it was well written and made total sense. If the Dems don’t stop fighting elections on the other side is trash because of reasons that the majority of voters aren’t prioritizing, then they will continue to lose.

Trump was historically unpopular and was narrowly beaten once and won reasonably comfortably the second time after Jan 6th and all the legal stuff that ensued. There’s a very leftish and liberal thing to do which is bemoan what that means about America and the electorate and I can understand the instinct to do that, but the correct thing to do is reflect on just how shitty your campaign was to manage to lose under those circumstances. Currently I haven’t seen anything useful from that perspective other than just the usual gloating that Trump is making so much of a mess of things that 2/4 years time it will swing back. Some of these lessons were obvious even going back to Hilary and without a wholesale purge and change at the top it seems like they won’t stick.

Insert something here about how we really need more than two parties in America. At this point I’ll just be happy if there’s more than one in 4 years.

[flere-imsaho]

I'll be a hypocrite for a moment and echo something RainMaker has been saying which is that it is absolutely a problem that too many national-level Democratic politicians are still in office primarily through a) intertia and b) their ability to raise money. They've lost their ability to connect with the voters who moved the 2024 election, and it shows and I don't see them figuring it out (or having the energy to do so) any time soon.

To that end, I'm doing what I can to get Durbin & Shakowsky (my IL Senator & Rep, respectively) to retire. They're both 80+ and it's ridiculous, especially given that IL has a deep Democratic bench. I'm sure there are other blue or even purple states where this is the case as well.

The other benefit this will have is to, hopefully, clear out a lot of the old Clinton consultant class & their way of thinking. We need politicians like AOC (with a diverse array of views - AOC isn't winning a seat in Nebraska) who know how to connect with voters and are willing to put in the time to do so. If they get out there and do that, the money will come (and let's be clear, the money is necessary). It is no longer the other way around.

[RainMaker]

I don't really know why you would care what the guy who helped lose the election to Trump thought about running a campaign. He's a repeated loser who doesn't understand the electorate and has made up fake numbers to justify his actions.

And yes, he's going to try to save his ass. The guy has made a fortune in politics pushing centrist popularism that loses elections. His organization is funded by Walmart, Ford, Bill Gates, and oil-rich Arab nations. There's a reason none of the messaging centered around helping poor and working class people (something Democrats abandoned back in the 90's). That's how you get campaigns centered around "democracy" while praising the Cheneys and genociding an ethnic group (Israel is something that has NEVER come up in any of his analysis).

The party is cooked as long as charlatans like that continue to have influence and control the purse strings. I really don't understand why politics is the one thing where you can fail so spectacularly and continue to keep your job.

[RainMaker]

Just to give you an example. His case for why the Democrats didn't put together a more working class campaign that targeted low turnout voters is that they would vote Trump. He does not cite his source for these numbers (like in most of his work).


This poll came out the other day showing those numbers were completely fictional. Non-voters hate Trump. They should have targeted them but they couldn't because of corporate donors.

[flere-imsaho]

Well, that's why I made the post. Have you found a good, objective, data-driven analysis, RM? I would be interested in reading it.

Also, those two data points are from different dates. I take the point about lack of sourcing, but it seems perfectly possible that "not voting in 2024" was 52% Trump on election day and 13% Trump today.

[RainMaker]

There was some after the election I can pull up. But a lot of it is the same stuff posted during the campaign when people were screaming at the Democrats to run on something that was popular.

And yes, I know the dates are different. The point is that there is no way non-voter support dropped that much in 2 months. It's likely his numbers were fabricated, like much of his data that he doesn't cite. This is the guy that repeatedly said democracy is the most important issue for Democrats to run on (turned out hilariously wrong). That Liz Cheney scored high in their testing (wrong again).

I guess my point is that this guy is a charlatan and should not be trusted for any analysis. He was horribly wrong on almost everything during the campaign and pissed away $700m in campaign funds. He works for a think tank funded by billionaires. He serves them first and his political analysis and work will always be at their behest.

[flere-imsaho]

OK fine, but I'm still looking for a good analysis written a few months after the election, by which time all the data is available and knee-jerk punditry has settled down. The immediate post-election stuff seems to be mostly based on exit polls, whereas I'd rather see analysis on real voting data combined with post-election electorate surveys.

[GrantDawg]

I don't buy for a minute that being "Republican-light" is going yo be a winning strategy. Gavin Newsome sure thinks it will, though. He is going on all-in from the looks of it.

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[HerRealName]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I don't buy for a minute that being "Republican-light" is going yo be a winning strategy. Gavin Newsome sure thinks it will, though. He is going on all-in from the looks of it.

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It's a great way to attract billionaire donor money and love from the consultants though.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I don't buy for a minute that being "Republican-light" is going yo be a winning strategy. Gavin Newsome sure thinks it will, though. He is going on all-in from the looks of it.

I think they know it's not a good strategy but they don't have much of a choice. This recent election is all the proof you need. They can't target non-Republicans because it'll upset their donors so they're praying that shifting to the right even more will work. Schumer laid out the strategy years ago when he said "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia."

As for Newsom, recent poll shows him 29 points underwater nationally in terms of approval. His shift to the right isn't really working but he'll still be a favorite due to his ability to raise money for the party.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

OK fine, but I'm still looking for a good analysis written a few months after the election, by which time all the data is available and knee-jerk punditry has settled down. The immediate post-election stuff seems to be mostly based on exit polls, whereas I'd rather see analysis on real voting data combined with post-election electorate surveys.

This guy usually has some good analysis of data. He does miss though sometimes. It's unfortunately paywalled now but was a great recap after the election.

hxxps://www.ettingermentum.news/p/the-biggest-thing-we-learned-from

What they found is that there was a lot of apathy among people who voted for Biden in 2020. Basically Dems said they'd do a bunch of stuff and then didn't. The stuff they did do didn't get promoted well, largely because the President was unable to speak publicly. So you had a lot of voters who saw no improvement in their lives, despite being told they were doing great, just not bother to participate in the process.

Also, they found that Biden was incredibly unpopular, especially after his debate performance. That people desperately wanted Harris and the party to break from him on issues. It's why she got a bump after taking over which quickly faded when she refused to differentiate. They also found that the ads Trump ran tying the two together were his highest performing.

But maybe the biggest thing was how well Trump did with low information voters and those don't typically vote in elections (the people that Shor said they should not go after). These voters tend to go off how their life is going (vibes I guess). If things are going shitty, they want to hear a politician tell them they'll fix it. Trump ran on making their life better even if it was all bullshit. Harris told them their life was great already and that they should care about some vague democracy issue that even they didn't believe. Those people chose to vote for the candidate who said he'd fix it.

[GrantDawg]

That seems spot on to me.

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[Danny]

Newsome isnt even that popular in california. I can't see him winning a national election though maybe he is slimy enough to convince the low info voters if things suck the next four years

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Danny

Newsome isnt even that popular in california. I can't see him winning a national election though maybe he is slimy enough to convince the low info voters if things suck the next four years

Seems par for the course.

[RainMaker]

He raises money and is extremely popular with corporate donors.

[miked]

The interesting thing to me is how much democrats always focus on bipartisanship and "reaching across the aisle" whereas the republicans just run on fuck you let's get ours. Like, I'm tired of hearing how much you want to work with the side that has absolutely no intention of working with you or compromising on anything.

Just like now, all we hear is that the democrats can't do anything. When republicans are in the minority party, they grind everything to a halt and fuck over the process.