IdeaLog
No, the solution is not to move toward the center
Posted on November 27, 2024
Harris did not lose because Democrats are too progressive, too woke, or too soft on immigration. In fact, this was not an election about liberal versus conservative, it was about truth versus lies and—let us be clear—the lies won.
But how? In 2024, Harris got 74,368,622 votes while Trump received 76,861,090. Compare that to 2020 when Biden got 81,268,867 votes and Trump received 74,216,747. So Trump gained a bit more than 2.5 million votes nationwide in 2024 compared to 2020 while Harris lost nearly 7 million votes compared to Biden.
Clearly, the main reason why Harris lost is that millions of Biden voters did not show up on Election Day or, in a few cases, showed up and either voted for a third candidate or failed to vote for president. A small slice of the least involved ought-to-be Democrats were discouraged or suppressed. There is no chance that these Democrats failed to vote in 2024 because they thought Harris wasn’t centrist enough.
There were really three presidential elections going on: in blue states, in red states, and in the seven targeted swing states (AZ, GA, MI, NV, NC, PA, WI).
In blue states, the candidates hardly ran campaigns at all. Trump in 2024 generally picked up a marginal number of votes compared to 2020. Much more significantly, Democratic support collapsed compared to 2020. In New York City alone, Democrats lost a half-million votes. Let’s examine New Jersey as an example. In 2024, Harris got 2,212,472 votes while Trump received 1,963,235 for a 52-to-46 percent victory. But in 2020, Biden got 2,608,400 votes while Trump received 1,883,313, a 57-to-41 percent Democratic victory. So Trump gained only about 80,000 while Harris lost nearly 400,000 votes. Without any real campaign going on, Trump voters turned out strongly and Democratic voters didn’t.
In red states, again, the candidates hardly ran campaigns, and yet, Trump in 2024 generally added a lot of votes while Democrats again failed to turn out. Take Florida for example. In 2024, Trump got 6.109.549 votes while Harris received 4,680,890 for a 56-to-43 percent Republican victory. In 2020, Trump got 5,668,732 votes to Biden’s 5,297,045 votes, only a 51-to-48 percent victory. So, in Florida, Trump gained about 500,000 while Harris lost 600,000.
In the seven targeted states (AZ, GA, MI, NV, NC, PA, WI), there was not much change from 2020, but what killed Harris in these close contests was a failure of turnout among voters in blue cities (e.g., Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee). If our Biden voters had turned out in PA, MI and WI, Harris would have won. In other words, Democratic votes were successfully suppressed, one way or another.
The crucial question is, how did this happen, because we need to prevent it in the future. It cannot be primarily a failure of the Harris campaign or Democratic leaders in key states. Lower Democratic turnout occurred nationwide. It must be due to factors that occurred across America. It must be driven by something that is not geographic or particularly demographic, since it affected all areas and demographic groups.
A coming-soon blog will argue that this could only be accomplished through the Internet. That whites were microtargeted with lies encouraging them to join their in-group in the white community while people of color were microtargeted with lies making them frustrated with Democrats and the political system, encouraging them to sit out the 2024 election. As Nancy Pelosi said:
Republicans outdid us on the social media front.… For us in this next election…we have to leapfrog over them.