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2024 election
Crawling Through the Wreckage: Understanding 11/5
Trump won the 2024 election because a majority of voters had suffered severe economic hardship. These voters ignored Trump’s faults.
Nov 25, 2024
It’s been more than two weeks since the disastrous U.S. presidential election. It’s time to consider what happened, why Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump. Obviously, Democrats had problems, and we need to understand what they were so we can fix them before the 2026 midterm elections.
1. Although the overall 2024 vote was down, voters showed up where it mattered. There were about 4.5 million fewer voters in 2024 than there were in 2020 (2.8%). In California there were 1.7 million fewer voters than there were in 2020 (9.7%).
It would be easy to attribute Harris’ loss (2.5 million votes) to this drop-off in overall vote were it not for the fact that total vote in the seven swing states was up. In Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin the vote increased by almost 900,000. In each swing state the 2024 vote exceeded 2020.
Voters saw Trump as the stronger leader who would fix the economy. In 2024 Trump was the change candidate.
In many swing states, Harris did better than Biden had in 2024. But in all the swing states, Trump improved.
2. Who voted for Trump? In politics, sometimes answers are simpler than we expect. The CNN 2024 exit polls contain the question: “[What was your] 2020 presidential vote?” Ninety-three percent of 2024 Harris voters voted for President Joe Biden in 2020; however, 6% shifted to Trump in 2024. Allowing for the 4% of 2020 Trump voters that shifted to Harris, the net shift to Trump was 2%, or 3 million voters. Harris lost by 2.5 million votes.
One answer to the confounding 2024 results is that Biden voters shifted to Trump.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Before the election, the No. 1 voter issue was “the inflation and the economy” (YouGov). In the CNN 2024 exit polls, there’s a sharp distinction between Harris and Trump voters on this question: “In the past year, inflation has caused your family____.” For those answering, “severe hardship,” 74% voted for Trump; (77% of Harris voters responded, “no hardship.”)
We could stop here with a terse summary: Harris lost because of the economy. Because of inflation, too many 2020 Biden voters favored Trump on the economy.
3. Why did Trump voters choose this terrible person? While voting solely because of the economy makes sense, there’s still the fact that 76.7 million voters chose Trump, a person who does not believe in the rule of law.
The Harris campaign knew they had a huge problem with the state of the economy. Their campaign assumed they could accomplish three things to overcome this problem: (1) convince voters that Harris was better able to handle the economy than Trump; (2) argue that there were other important issues where Harris was clearly superior to Trump; and (3) make the case that Trump was unfit to be President—because of January 6 and his numerous peccadilloes.
Harris never succeeded on (1). The CNN exit polls showed that 52% of voters trusted Trump to “handle the economy”; (46% said Harris.)
Regarding (2), Harris seems to have succeeded. The CNN exit polls asked voters “the most important issue:” 34% said democracy, and 80% felt Harris would be best on this issue.
Regarding (3), The most polarized CNN exit poll question was: “[Who do you have a] favorable opinion of?” Forty-four percent had a favorable opinion only of Harris, and 43% had a favorable opinion only of Trump.
Writing for Time magazine, Jill Filipovic explained the mentality of Trump voters: “…it’s hard to imagine that a critical mass of people who cast their ballots for Trump don’t, like everyone else, see Trump’s vanity and venality and strongman aims. The dark truth is that a lot of voters seem to want a strongman in charge.”
Trump won the 2024 election because a majority of voters had suffered severe economic hardship. These voters ignored Trump’s faults.
4.The Campaign themes are telling: Trump made the economy the center of his campaign. He asked, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” His closing ad focused on the economy: “Kamala broke it, Trump will fix it.”
Kamala Harris focused on a more general theme, “A new generation of leadership.” (“We’re not going back.”) She closed with “A Brighter Future.” “I will be a president for all Americans.”
The CNN Exit poll asked, “What candidate quality mattered most?” The No. 1 choice was “Has ability to lead” at 30%. Trump prevailed 2 to 1. The No. 2 choice was “Can bring needed change” at 28%. Trump prevailed 3 to 1.
Voters saw Trump as the stronger leader who would fix the economy. In 2024 Trump was the change candidate.
5. What was the role of disinformation? This was a presidential campaign where disinformation played an enormous role. This disinformation was disseminated to an unprecedented level on social media: X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, podcasts,, etc.
There were two forms of disinformation: (1) Slamming Kamala Harris. (2) Distorting the candidate’s positions on issues.
Regarding (1), the Trump campaign spent more than $200 million on an ad attacking Harris’ position on transgender rights: “Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you.” Trump implied that Democrats supported gender-affirming surgery for children without parental consent.
Transgender status is a hot button for Trump supporters. Recent polls suggest that MAGA voters vastly exaggerate the number of transgender individuals in the United States; they believe the number to be around 30% where in reality it is less than 1% (0.6).
The Harris campaign did not circulate false information about Trump, but they did run adds linking him to January 6, Project 2025, and other anti-democratic positions.
The net effect of this disinformation was to make both candidates unpopular. To repeat, the most polarized CNN exit poll question was: “[Who do you have a] favorable opinion of?” Forty-four percent had a favorable opinion only of Harris, and 43% had a favorable opinion only of Trump. (Eight percent had a favorable opinion of neither candidate.)
Harris hoped to emerge as a positive alternative to Trump but, because of disinformation, she didn’t. Thus, for Trump voters, the 2024 election can be summarized: “I don’t like Trump, and I know he has done bad things, but I believe he is a strong leader who can change the economy.”
6. Was the election stolen? Because, for many Democrats, the presidential election results were surprising, there’s a lingering belief that MAGA stole votes in swing states. I have seen no hard evidence to suggest that happened.
There are three situations that suggest chicanery. One was that the election polls suggested that Harris had a slight lead. However, there were always several percentage points of “undeclared voters.” In 2024 they broke for Trump. (In my opinion, these were the “shy” Trump voters pollsters also saw in 2016—voters who are hesitant to declare they would vote for Trump.)
The second reason was that Democrats assumed they had a superior ground game to MAGA and, therefore, there would be a late-breaking surge for Harris. This didn’t happen. Trump had a much better ground game than expected.
The third reason that Democrats suspect voter fraud was because in many states there were situations where Harris lost the presidential vote, but a liberal Democrat won the Senate vote. That’s because, sad to say, Harris didn’t have a winning message but, in many cases, the down-ballot Democratic candidate did.
Trump’s core message had two components: “Americans were better off in 2020 than they are in 2024. Biden/Harris scuttled my great economy by opening the border and letting millions of illegal immigrants into the county. They are driving up prices.”
Robert Reich writes that the Democratic response should have been: “[B]ig corporations and the wealthy have shafted average working Americans, whose wages and jobs have gone nowhere for decades and who are understandably frustrated and angry at what they see as a rigged system.” But Kamala Harris didn’t say that. Voters perceived that Trump had an explanation about what had happened to the economy between 2020 and 2024, and Harris did not.
The fact that Harris didn’t have a coherent economic message explains many “split-ticket” situations. For example, “Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez more or less held her voter share in her district even as it swung sharply toward Trump. As Ocasio-Cortez’s own voters told her, the reason her constituents split the ticket between her and Trump wasn’t because they were drawn to Trump’s right-wing policies or his ugly rhetoric. It was because they wanted change, because they viewed both Trump and her as fighting for the working-class.”
7. What about sexism and racism? Many Harris supporters believe that she lost because of her gender and race. Perhaps it’s true that voters wanted a strong man.
There’s no statistical evidence for this. And some contrary poll results. In two swing states, Michigan and Wisconsin, Democrats ran female candidates for Senate; both beat their male opponents. In Michigan Elise Slotkin got fewer votes than Harris. In Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin got about the same number of votes as Harris.
8. What’s Next? Trump promised to fix the economy. It’s the reason he won on 11/5.
Trump won’t be able to fix the economy because (1) he, personally, has no idea what to do. And (2) the Republican Party’s economic philosophy does not provide the answer. Republicans believe in ”trickle-down” economics; they believe that if they give tax cuts to billionaires then “a rising tide will lift all boats.” Trickle-down economics won’t fix the current economic malaise.
The only thing that’s predictable about the next few months is chaos. Trump and his surrogates are guaranteed to promote outrage and division. When this happens, Democrats should say: “What’s this got to do with fixing the economy?”
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A Last Chance for Harris to Win Back Voters Opposed to Gaza Genocide
What voters opposed to the war on the people of Gaza want most is what U.S. law already requires: an arms embargo on the Israeli government that forces an end to the slaughter and starvation.
Sep 06, 2024
Before sparking outrage by refusing to let any Palestinian Americans speak at the Democratic National Convention last month, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was on her way to winning back at least some of the voters who had rejected President Joe Biden's candidacy over the war on Gaza.
The vice president had spent weeks taking several small but positive steps that gave hope to young people as well as American Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, and other voters opposed to U.S. support for the war on Gaza.
She first refused to preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's predictably dishonest and dangerous speech to Congress. She also gave him a cold reception when they met one-on-one: She avoided smiling or shaking his hand during the standard post-meeting photo op and spoke alone to the press afterward.
Kamala Harris still has a very narrow opening to win over some of the voters who abandoned Biden but do not want to see Trump return to the White House.
During her remarks that day and in multiple campaign speeches, she has explicitly called for a cease-fire as part of a hostage deal and acknowledged Palestinian suffering in an empathetic way that President Biden rarely used.
She appointed a well-known and respected American Muslim attorney to serve as her liaison to Arab and Muslim voters and then stood by that official when she faced predictable attacks from pro-Israel groups.
She met with some Palestinian-American and Muslim community members on the sidelines of campaign events and gave the clear impression that she was far more sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians than her public remarks would indicate.
She initially deflected questions about whether she would support an arms embargo on the Israeli government, which was itself actually a positive sign given that any Democratic presidential candidate in years past would have responded to that question by simply saying, "No, I do not and never will support conditioning or limiting arms to Israel."
When leaders of the Uncommitted Movement later revealed that Harris had privately expressed a willingness to discuss an arms embargo, her national security adviser's cleanup statement said that she "does not support" an arms embargo in the present tense without making any pronouncements about the future.
She picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as vice president instead of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who had repeatedly gone out of his way to demonize college student protesters, Ben & Jerry's, and other advocates for Palestinian human rights in ways that no other VP candidate had.
Most recently, Harris approved a first-ever panel at the DNC focused on Palestinian human rights, allowing mainstream Arab and Palestinian leaders to speak freely to a packed audience about the genocide in Gaza.
Of course, none of these steps were enough. What voters opposed to the war on the people of Gaza want most is what U.S. law already requires: an arms embargo on the Israeli government that forces an end to the slaughter and starvation.
Although Vice President Harris had not been willing to break with President Biden or spark a backlash from her pro-Israel supporters by supporting an arms embargo, she had sent signals that she would at least be more open to discussing the various demands of anti-genocide voters than Biden—or Trump, for that matter.
Until, that is, the Democratic National Convention.
First, the party platform regurgitated most of the same pro-Israel talking points that AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel demand of candidates in their position papers, including dishonest attacks on the South Africa-inspired Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement; saber-rattling against Iran; and clear commitments to billions in promised funding for the Israeli government.
Second, the DNC gave a prime-time speaking slot to Israeli-American parents of hostages held captive in Gaza but then refused to give any speaking slot at all to any Palestinian Americans while making plenty of room for Republican politicians.
Even when prominent members of Congress, activists, and major unions called for the DNC and the Harris campaign to reconsider their decision, they refused. This decision insulted and infuriated Palestinian Americans and their supporters.
It also raised a very real policy concern: If supporters of Palestinian human rights could not even convince the Harris campaign to give one measly three-minute speaking spot to a Palestinian-American Democrat who would have endorsed Harris, how can we expect a Harris White House to listen when we lobby for changes in government policy?
In the weeks since the DNC speaker fiasco, the campaign has not expressed any regret for what happened. In a CNN interview, Harris also seemed to explicitly rule out supporting an embargo on even "some" arms to the Israeli government. This is remarkable given that even President Biden belatedly suspended shipments of 2,000-pound bombs.
Long story short, the Harris campaign has squandered much of the goodwill it initially built up with voters concerned about Gaza. For example, a new poll of American Muslim registered voters conducted from August 25 to 27 showed Harris winning only 29% of the vote. Jill Stein received identical support while 17% were undecided.
Despite these bleak numbers, all is not lost for Harris—yet.
Donald Trump is going out of his way to antagonize Americans who support Palestinian human rights: using Palestinian as a racist slur, promising to let Netanyahu finish the job in Gaza, speculating about ways to make Israel even larger and pledging to weaponize the federal government against college students and others who stand up for Palestine. Trump even implied that he might attack Gaza himself if the American hostages have not been released by the time he takes office.
That means Kamala Harris still has a very narrow opening to win over some of the voters who abandoned Biden but do not want to see Trump return to the White House.
What, if anything, can her campaign do now?
First, apologize for not including a Palestinian-American speaker at the convention and feature Palestinian-American speakers at a prominent campaign event.
Second, sit down with and listen to representatives of the Muslim, Palestinian, Arab, Jewish, Black, and other organizations that oppose the genocide in Gaza and use the upcoming presidential debate as an opportunity to clearly reject anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia here at home.
Third, pledge to enforce U.S. laws that already forbid arms sales and transfers to any foreign human rights violators, including the Israeli government.
Perhaps most importantly, Vice President Harris must convince President Biden to force Netanyahu to agree to the cease-fire deal that he keeps sabotaging. Harris says that she and President Biden are working around the clock to secure a cease-fire deal, but the truth is that the main barrier to a deal is Netanyahu's opposition to a permanent cease-fire and his insistence on partially occupying Gaza.
With nothing left to lose politically, Biden should leverage U.S. military aid to force Netanyahu to accept a permanent cease-fire deal that frees all hostages and political prisoners.
Taking these steps might allow the Harris-Walz campaign to win back some of the disillusioned voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and other swing states where every vote counts.
Time is running out, the path is narrow, and the missteps of recent weeks have made her journey all the more difficult. If Vice President Harris is going to do the right thing, the time to act is now.
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Leading Jewish Group to Biden: Backing Israel's War on Gaza Puts 'US Democracy in Danger'
"For the sake of the lives of all people in the region, and the safety and futures of all of us in the United States, we urge you to make good on your own promise to cease sending offensive munitions to Israel."
Jun 05, 2024
A leading American Jewish group that historically has not engaged with the Israel-Palestine conflict sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday warning his continued support for Israel's assault on Gaza is endangering countless lives and threatening democracy at home.
The letter, penned by Bend the Arc: Jewish Action CEO Jamie Beran, urges Biden to immediately "stop providing offensive weapons to the Israeli military" as the nation's far-right leaders make clear their opposition to a permanent cease-fire deal and barrel ahead with a devastating offensive in Rafah.
"Time and time again, despite your calls to end this violence, you have not followed through with material action," the letter reads. "With over 1 million Palestinian refugees now being forced to flee Rafah, their last guaranteed refuge, thousands of lives lost, and families of captives being fined in Israel for demanding a cease-fire, it is long past time to end U.S. support for these attacks."
Bend the Arc typically focuses on domestic issues, but Beran wrote in the new letter to Biden that since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October, "the violence in Israel-Palestine has permeated our borders to the point where it jeopardizes our collective safety."
"It impacts Jewish life in the U.S. and the safety of Jewish and Arab Americans. And, under the threat of an emboldened authoritarian movement at our doorstep, it threatens our shared ability to defend and build what will protect all of us—a vibrant, multifaith, multiracial democracy," Beran continued. "U.S. support for continued violence in Gaza is putting American safety and U.S. democracy in danger."
"For the sake of the lives of all people in the region, and the safety and futures of all of us in the United States," she added, "we urge you to make good on your own promise to cease sending offensive munitions to Israel."
Dear President @JoeBiden,
Continued U.S. Support for the Siege of Gaza is a Threat to Millions Abroad and Democracy at Home.https://t.co/GUUKT0TNgH
— Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) June 4, 2024
The letter comes a week after the Israeli military used U.S.-made bombs in a deadly attack on a camp for displaced people in Rafah. The attack killed at least 45 people and wounded more than 240.
The strike was just the latest example of Israel's army massacring Gaza civilians with American weaponry, which has flowed to Israel with virtually no restrictions since October 7. Shortly after the Hamas-led attack, Israel used U.S.-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions in a pair of strikes that killed 43 civilians in Gaza, including 19 children.
Beran noted in her letter that a majority of Jewish Democratic voters and Democratic voters overall "have called for an end to this," supporting a cease-fire and an arms embargo on Israel until it stops its attacks on the Gaza Strip, which has been utterly decimated by the eight-month Israeli assault. Growing public opposition to Israel's war on Gaza comes despite a coordinated Israeli propaganda effort aimed at swaying Americans' views and bolstering U.S. military aid for Israel.
Biden's support for the Israeli military's atrocities, Beran warned Tuesday, "will continue to increase the heart-wrenching death toll, increase the number of calls for a cease-fire, and decrease your poll numbers—straight through the election."
"Your victory this November is the single most powerful tool we have to obstruct an irreversible timeline towards the end of U.S. democracy and our continuing work to build a society that serves everybody—from protecting voting rights, to enshrining the right to abortion, to creating just pathways for immigration," she argued. "Your success as a candidate is tied inextricably to the people's faith in your ability to keep us safe. As the violence overseas continues to intertwine itself across all of our domestic work, it too is now tied to your success and all of our safety."
"Not acting on your own red lines, combined with the Israeli government's promise to continue to violate them, will further erode your viability as a candidate in a race where every vote will matter," Beran added.
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