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It wasn’t a long night in America, at least compared to 2020. By around 1:30 a.m., the writing was on the wall: Donald Trump would win, and he would win big.
Trump became president by securing all seven swing states, meaning the electoral college will be decided at Trump’s 312 to Kamala’s 226. Trump also managed to carry the popular vote, which hasn’t been won by a Republican since 2004.
So, as I sat at my kitchen table in Belgium until 9 a.m., I couldn’t help but feel angry at the Harris campaign failures. Donald Trump, an unpopular candidate among Americans, had been handed the White House by consistent Democratic failures, poor messaging from the Harris campaign, and a losing strategy.
President Joe Biden oversaw a poor economy due to COVID-19, which did rebound, foreign policy disasters, and had one of the worst approval ratings of a modern president. Yet, the Democratic party assured voters he would be the nominee and pushed for unity behind a man many believed was no longer fit to serve as president. The campaign refused to listen until the first presidential debate on June 28.
Despite what I consider the worst debate performance by any presidential candidate, the Biden campaign continued to claim he was the best candidate against Trump– even though his internal polling had Trump beating him with over 400 electoral votes, which we only learned after the election.
Donor and public pressure finally forced Biden to withdraw on July 21. On that day, he endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris, who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020 and was among the first to withdraw.
Her campaign started strong; her approval rating flipped, there was excitement within the democratic party and its base, and the donors reciprocated by giving her the biggest day of fundraising by a political candidate ever. The Democrats saw the excitement for change when they switched Biden out for Harris only to stick with Biden’s positions on the most important issues.
Dr. Matt Beverlin, a political science professor at Loyola University Maryland, said he did not find Harris a compelling candidate due to her similarities to Biden but noted she lacked Biden’s positive credentials.
“Harris, though, did not have Biden’s experience as Vice-President under Obama, a White House still revered by Democrats. Nor did Harris have Biden’s gravitas in foreign affairs,” Beverlin said.
Harris promised to continue funding and arming Israel, continuing the economic plan with adjustments for small businesses, increasing fracking, and abandoning previous climate change positions and the tough-on-immigration policy. All of these positions were different from the ones Harris ran in 2020.
This strategy played to the center and the right, hoping that moderate Republican voters, such as Nikki Haley supporters, would join the democratic coalition to defeat Trump. This became evident when Harris promised to put a Republican in her cabinet, touted the endorsements of former Trump advisors, and brought former congresswoman Liz Cheney out at her rallies.
We can now see that this did not work out. Around 7 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 did not vote for Harris this year, compared to only 2 million fewer people voting for Trump between 2020 and 2024. She not only won fewer Republicans but also fewer of every racial group, except for black women, and fewer of every age group, except for those 65 and older.
This is not to say Trump campaigned better on any policy; his economic policies will be disastrous for anyone who isn’t in the top 1% of earners in the country, which the Harris campaign pointed out by all gathering Nobel-prize-winning economists to disavow it.
“In personal finance issues the country is rejecting the status quo, attributing inflation and housing prices to Biden and by extension Kamala Harris,” Beverlin said.
He also constantly attacked and promised to legislate against Transgender people, specifically the youth, which is vile and dangerous. Still, the Harris campaign offered little to no response to this issue.
Trump told people the reason the economy is poor, the housing crisis is raging, crime is increasing, and they are struggling is a result of migrants coming through the southern border, which he will fix by deporting 11 million people. By moving towards Trump on this issue, Harris failed to counter such racist messaging properly.
There is an argument to be made that Harris suffered with voters because she is not only a woman, but a woman of color. It’s no secret this country has a sexism problem; we just elected a man who was proven to be a rapist to the presidency. Our racism problem is so pervasive that people feel confident enough to text Black people that they have been “selected to pick cotton,” after Trump’s victory. This factor deserves to be acknowledged, but we can’t ignore the other factors, such as not engaging the progressive vote, the youth staying home, and her losses across every group. Both statements are true in this situation: Harris’ chances suffered because she is a Black woman and because she moved to the right, failing to read the room.
All of this brings us to reality. Trump has won, and the Democratic party needs to realize that there is no one to blame for this election loss but themselves. Blaming groups for not voting for the campaign gives them a pass instead of changing anything. Do the Democrats want people to vote for them? They must prove why they should. They must earn it.
Loyola College Democrats President Grace Gilrane ‘26 said the result was shocking but offered what she believes Democrats should be doing right now.
“I think that many Americans would appreciate the current administration and current legislators to make some moves to prepare for the incoming president and preempt some of the things he intends to enact,” Gilrane said.
While I agree with this sentiment, it does not go far enough. There needs to be a complete overhaul of the Democratic Party to encompass the working class and progressives adequately, address the mass struggle of the working-class living paycheck to paycheck, struggling with medical debt, and the millions devoid of healthcare, or I fear that 2024 will not be the last time America says, “We Are Going Back.”
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