I was the National Communications Director for the High Schoolers 4 Harris Campaign. Here’s What Went Wrong:
A single flag is left at Kamala Harris’ would-be victory party at Howard University in Washington D.C.Source: Daniel Cole via Reuters
Tuesday night was a disaster. Full stop.
As of writing, Kamala Harris is on track for the largest electoral defeat of any Democrat since 1988. For many in the Democratic Party, the images of 2016 are burned into their retinas: Donald Trump’s stunning defeat of Hillary Clinton. This time, the Democrat’s nightmare has unfolded once again—with stakes higher than ever.
Despite a recession, two impeachments, 6 bankruptcies, 34 felony convictions, and more than 400,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 under Trump’s watch, how could Harris have possibly managed to lose this badly? Here’s my take:
1. Run On Your Record, Not From It
When Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate for president in July after a whirlwind nominating process, the incumbent Democratic administration was unpopular. President Biden’s approval rating was just below 40%, and Americans’ economic confidence was deep underwater.
Accordingly, Harris and her advisors assessed that it would be wise for the campaign to reorient its strategy from defending the incumbent Biden Administration's record and instead run like a challenger against former President Trump. This disavowal of Harris’ own time as Vice President was a crucial mistake.
When Joe Biden took office four years ago, the United States was in a recession, a pandemic was ravaging the country, and Democrats held razor-thin majorities in both houses of Congress. Despite this, the Biden-Harris administration created one of the strongest economies in American history. Unemployment had reached a 50-year low, U.S. GDP was growing twice as fast as Europe’s post-COVID, the stock market was hitting record highs, and by the time of the 2024 election campaign, inflation had fallen to 2.4%. Additionally, President Biden signed significant pieces of legislation into law, including the American Rescue Plan, the CHIPS Act, and most consequently the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in clean energy in American history.
By bowing to public opinion on the economy instead of trying to influence it, Kamala Harris forfeited taking credit for one of the fastest and most complete economic recoveries in American history. Harris ran as if she’d never been in the White House, a difficult argument to sell when your name is a metonymy for half of it.
2. The Price of “Playing It Safe”
Throughout the campaign, Kamala Harris was difficult to gauge ideologically based on her previous record.
During her time as District Attorney in San Francisco, Harris was a deeply pragmatic prosecutor with several “tough on crime” policies, including an anti-truancy policy that prosecuted parents for their children's chronic absences from school. Later, as Attorney General of California, Harris defended the death penalty, opposed the legalization of marijuana, and declined to support a statewide requirement for police body cameras.
By the time she was a Senator, Harris embraced an extraordinarily progressive agenda, including Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and the Justice in Policing Act—the latter being a major departure from her record as a prosecutor. By the time Harris began her 2024 presidential campaign, nearly all of her policies from her previous four years had been entirely abandoned or watered down.
The Harris campaign made this decision in an attempt to appear reasonable in contrast to Donald Trump, for the sake of courting an imagined moderate Republican centrist who disliked Trump personally but preferred him over left-leaning Democrats on policy issues. However, by embracing a series of vague policy proposals meant to appeal to whatever opinion polls concluded the majority of Americans wanted, Harris came off as disingenuous and pandering.
With few issues to rally the Democratic base beyond abortion rights, the vague (albeit, important) idea of protecting democracy, and bland promises of middle-class tax cuts, Harris didn’t connect particularly well with nearly any demographic of Americans. Exit polls from the Associated Press show that Harris lost ground with every single demographic group relative to Biden in 2020.
My job with High Schoolers 4 Harris was to, literally, communicate Harris’ messages, and I still cannot confidently tell you exactly what “Opportunity Economy” means.
In the final weeks leading up to the election, several top figures within the North Carolina Democratic Party remarked to me how, in their view, Harris was running one of the strongest presidential campaigns they had ever seen. While it is true that Kamala Harris led what is likely the shiniest, sleekest, and least gaffe-prone campaign in recent memory, just because you aren’t taking steps backward, doesn't mean you are moving forward.
3. Bashing Biden: The Public Brawl That Broke the Party
I’m not going to pretend President Biden’s June debate against Donald Trump was anything short of terrible. Biden looked ancient and struggled to articulate his thoughts at several points during the debate.
However, the ensuing brutal and public pummeling of Biden in the days and weeks following the debate was a serious misstep by Democrats that demonstrated a lack of party unity, competence, and strategy. At a time when Republicans were rallying around Trump and proclaiming that he was chosen by God after an assassin’s bullet narrowly missed his skull, Democratic pundits and politicians spent their time on cable television publicly questioning the mental acuity and capacity of their nominee and, worse, incumbent president.
In presidential politics, incumbency has proven to be the most important factor in whether or not a party is returned to the White House. Since World War II, incumbent presidents have won re-election 67% of the time (8 out of 12), while nominees from the incumbent party who were not sitting presidents succeeded only 14% of the time (1 out of 7). Despite this, Democrats disparaged, disowned, and distanced themselves from their president over a bad debate.
If Democratic insiders knew President Biden was not mentally fit for office, he shouldn’t have run for re-election. Instead, the party, swayed by public opinion, only began to act when serious questions emerged about Biden’s age while the campaign was in full swing. Rather than fight back, Democrats chose to drop the man who had won 87% of the popular vote in the Democratic primary, leading to Kamala Harris catapulting into the nomination without a single vote cast in her name, completely untested on the national stage, with just three months until Election Day.
Voters are more comfortable with the devil they know than the devil they don’t. With Biden’s exit, many voters felt they no longer knew what to expect from Democrats, contributing to many being open to giving Trump a second chance.
What Now?
As a Democrat and someone who has dedicated their time for the last two years to this cause, this election hurts. It is important to take a moment to let this result sink in. However, we must not draw hasty conclusions including blaming Kamala Harris’ loss on her identity. As mentioned previously, exit polls showed that Kamala Harris underperformed Joe Biden among every demographic including the college-educated, women broadly, and even Hillary Clinton’s margin with black women by a margin of 3 points. While it is likely that Kamala Harris’ identity swayed a number of votes in this election, her larger defeat is indicative of a more fundamental problem within the Democratic Party. The sooner Democrats concede this, the sooner they will be able to rebuild and retake the halls of power.
If Democrats intend to flip either chamber of Congress or want a chance of retaking the White House over the next four years, they need to stop swaying to the tune of public opinion and instead sway public opinion itself. Republicans have succeeded over the last 8 years by unapologetically and wholeheartedly embracing Trumpism and whatever contradictions and incompetencies it may have. Democrats need to take this moment to reflect on what it is they stand for as a party.
Once Democrats find that platform and who they choose to champion it, they must be ready to unite behind them and remain undaunted by the media’s critical gaze. If Democrats believe they have the best policy prescriptions and a clean bill of service, they must turn convictions into action, immune to the pressure of the moment.