All the US presidential pre-election predictions were clear: the contest would be decided by the tiniest of margins pollsters predicted. But, in the end, the final result defied all those forecasts. Not only did former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump win both the popular vote by a substantial margin, but also the entire Electoral College.
With so much chatter amongst media pundits across the US and the Western World on how close the contest appeared to be for weeks into the campaign, such decisive win for Donald Trump of 4th November came as a huge shock to many of Kamala Harris supporters.
Putting aside the plain fact that President Biden finally announced his withdrawl from the race as late as 21st July 2024 – with just 14 weeks for members of his party to chose a new candidate – there is no question that the re-launch of the Democrats’ campaign was inevitably going to be a challenge for any new candidate.
With donations pouring into the Democrats’ campaign fund at record level once Kamala Harris was annointed as the new candidate, cautious optimism remained high amongs all “progressive” media such as CNN and the Washington Post. Polls were also showing a narrowing of the gap between the two candidates right up to the last week of the contest.
So what went so wrong?
It will no doubt take months and years before any definite and comprehensive answer will come to light, but part of explanations already identified as to why Trump won so decisively is his appeal to the working class and the role identity politics played in this election.
As acknowleged by left wing Senator Bernie Sanders , the Democrats abandonned the working class by failing to address “corporate greed and the billionnaire class” when tens of millions of working families were struggling with the cost of living.
In addition to the failure to fully address the economic plight of the destitutes and the working class, Kamala Harris’ campaign strategy seemed to be primarily focussed on women’s rights – and more specifically the protection of women’s right to chose – and discrimination against all minorities. Given that traditionally women and minorityvoters in the US have been known to align with the Democrats, such strategy had the merit of a certain logic.
But in this election, Harris’ campaign made a deeply flawed miscalculation. They wrongly assumed that all women, people of colour and other minority voters would simply identify with Harris and vote for her without doing much work to obtain their support. Her handicap in being so late in the race and personal weakness as a candidate was thus further aggravated by her approach and that of her party of prioritising identity over income and individual merit.
While Kamala Harris’ campaign energized her supporters with celebrity speakers at rallies and a youth-driven social media presence, blinded by her own belief in identity politics ideology, her candidacy fell badly short by assuming guaranteed women and minority votes. This was an ideologically driven and fatal mistake. It enabled Donald Trump to get away with playing his disgusting anti-immigration card, promises to ” fix ” the economy and the cost of living and put an end to the war in Ukraine and the Middle East.
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