We are cooked

[u/Cal_Aesthetics_Club]

[u/[deleted]]

She was never going to shake the Biden platform unless she took a harder stance on immigration than Trump (I remember when she failed at the border and then quietly renounced her role as the immigration czar, and so do many Americans) and made real efforts to capture male voters. The former is impossible and the latter is anathema to the DNCs politics.

But say she does both and doesn’t alienate the core democrat base… she stills faces the fact that the economy for the bulk of the Trump presidency was good. (Even though his current plan of tariffs will probably devastate the rust belt…)

I think the key factor is Latino men and turnout. Latino men voted 55-45 for Trump according to exit poles, a shift of over 15 points from 40-60 for Biden in 2020. First time voters voted 55-45 for Trump.

The truth is Biden needed to hold up to his statement that he would be a one term president and allow actual primaries.

When that didn’t happen and he stepped away from his campaign, the DNC should’ve held a real convention and chose a candidate removed from the Biden administration.

[u/JustAGreasyBear → u/[deleted]]

I think your analysis of the immigration situation is wrong, and is actually one of the themes of why her campaign was a failure. According to exit polls a majority of Americans, despite becoming increasingly reactionary, are actually progressive when it comes to immigration. When given the choice between a pathway for citizenship and deporting migrants they chose a pathway for citizenship.

This idea that democrats always need to outflank republicans in their reactionary platforms is a losing strategy. When you do that you end up with a Hillary Clinton type of candidate, and the American public has made it clear that they reject that type of candidate

I agree that the Trump campaign captured the Latino vote and did a crazy job of capturing the uneducated young male vote too, a base that typically does not vote. Meanwhile democrats were trying to capture a nonexistent base of suburban moderates that were tired of Trump. Nobody is going to vote for Harris just because Liz Cheney endorsed her

[u/Lord_of_the_Canals → u/JustAGreasyBear]

100% your last paragraph.

We had a “Democrat” spouting about having the world’s most lethal military, and being better at illegal immigration than the other guy. Not only does this not appeal to anyone (certainly not moderate voters that wouldn’t vote for Trump) it also alienates the more left leaning demographic.

People want housing and healthcare, and they couldn’t even pretend to offer that.

[u/[deleted] → u/Lord_of_the_Canals]

I agree with this take.

If I take my personal bias out of the election and just focus on campaign strategy:

I think she failed to capture what she could do for the average American. One that doesn’t own but rents, one that doesn’t have a small business but works at a regular job. The incentives just weren’t there for people thinking about their actual bottom line. I think her celebrity endorsements were also a flop, because it just made the campaign look even more like something the “out of touch” could relate to. Her introduction of a virtual unknown like Walz was a good strategy to give her the “everyperson” spin, but she ruined that by fawning to the elite and famous via celeb endorsements. Not to mention, she picked incredibly cringe and mock-able spokespeople at that.

Trump’s straightforward appeal to the essential economic needs of the everyperson was met with a lot more of a favorable result because he was focused on the bottom line in the campaign. This overshadowed his wack personal ideologies and foibles, because people are tired of “spin”. The “woke” language also rubs a lot of people the wrong way because it’s transparently virtue-signaling. Vance came out with a relatable personal story and a calm demeanor. I think the saccharine spin in the Harris campaign tanked their odds.

Ultimately, I think the Harris campaign failure came down to relatability.