"Republicans were not able to boost their margins in the swing states in 2024 as much as they did nationally,..."
I think this is easily explained. Kamala Harris was unliked and unpopular, as she has been since her primary campaign in 2019. Prior to July 2024, she was even more unpopular than Joe Biden. In swing states, where every voter …
"Republicans were not able to boost their margins in the swing states in 2024 as much as they did nationally,..."
I think this is easily explained. Kamala Harris was unliked and unpopular, as she has been since her primary campaign in 2019. Prior to July 2024, she was even more unpopular than Joe Biden. In swing states, where every voter knows that their vote is crucial to the outcome of the election, a lot of Democrats and Indies who don't like her, held their noses and voted for her anyway. In red and blue states where the outcome was pre-ordained, these voters simply stayed home, thereby increasing Trump's margins. If you were a red state Democrat who's vote was irrelevant in say, South Carolina, and you didn't like Kamala Harris, why would you bother to turn out and vote for her? Likewise, if you were a blue state Democrat in New Jersey who thought Harris was incompetent. She was going to win your state, anyway, so why put your fingerprints on it? (BTW, this same thought process is what doomed Hillary Clinton in 2016 - she was so disliked, even among Democrats, that voters in the blue-wall states who thought she'd win without them, stayed home, rather than vote for her).
To me, this is the simple explanation for why Trump won the popular vote, gained ground nearly everywhere, but barely won the swing states, while the GOP lost every swing state Senate race except for Pennsylvania, and only won the House by 3 votes.
I think a better explanation is that Kamala had 100 days. (And if you think she was incompetent, she did a HELL of a job in 100 days, uniting the party, raising money, and turning out the vote.) But her opponent had an 8 year head start.
So, if you're Kamala, your best bet is to run triage. Don't put a lot of resources into CA– you're winning there anyway. Same with FL– you're losing there, anyway. Focus on the handful of swing states you need to win. Maybe add in a couple more like NC just to make Trump spend resources in a state he can't afford to lose.
This explains why did better in swing states than the rest of the country– running a 100-day campaign, she basically mailed the rest of the country in (she had to). It also explains why people like Gallego ran ahead of her– they had more time to build a brand and a coalition.
That is certainly a viable analysis. We'll probably never know which of us is right.
That said, I do think Kamala is basically incompetent, and that she sucks at politics. This was evidenced during her 2019 campaign and unpopular vice presidency. That said, given the circumstances, I admit she was a part of a pretty damn good campaign, run by the Biden experts/team that won in 2020. They might have beaten Trump again, had they had a decent candidate and more time. She played her part well. She did what she was told. Kept her head down at first, stayed out of the spotlight, and let the "vibe" do its thing. The party was just so relieved to have a candidate that could campaign, her numbers couldn't help but improve. She didn't do a press conference for weeks after she was nominated. They protected her. In commercials, she ran as a moderate, never mentioning any of the woke positions she had taken in 2019. She gave a decent convention speech, and she beat the hell out of Trump in the debate (a really low-bar accomplishment, but it's something).
But, she couldn't hide forever, and she couldn't run against herself (and her 2019 positions). In the end, the vibe receded, and she was left with the public perception of herself from her "failed" vice presidency. Fair of not, her vice presidency was massacred in the media for four years. By November, she was leaking oil badly from all cylinders. Her polls were deteriorating, and that is when the unthinkable of losing the popular vote began to become a reality. Her campaign has since admitted that they never saw internal polling suggesting she could win. Had she had more time, I think she would have lost worse.
Well, one woman was a black woman who was not very good at politics, and who was defined as an "incompetent, inarticulate DEI hire", and the other was Hillary Clinton. So, I'm not sure your knee-jerk general misogyny argument holds water on those two.
And, I didn't say it was all Democrats in red/blue states, just enough of them to increase Trump's margins overall. You did not fall into that category, even though your vote didn't matter in the end.
Elect more women. And if white boys are threatened by intelligent, accomplished and educated women, even better.
And, spent zero time trying to accommodate the views of Republicans who spent decades laying the groundwork that allowed trump to take over their party. Let them clean up their own mess but I suspect the agenda trump is implementing right now makes many Republicans very happy.
"Republicans were not able to boost their margins in the swing states in 2024 as much as they did nationally,..."
I think this is easily explained. Kamala Harris was unliked and unpopular, as she has been since her primary campaign in 2019. Prior to July 2024, she was even more unpopular than Joe Biden. In swing states, where every voter knows that their vote is crucial to the outcome of the election, a lot of Democrats and Indies who don't like her, held their noses and voted for her anyway. In red and blue states where the outcome was pre-ordained, these voters simply stayed home, thereby increasing Trump's margins. If you were a red state Democrat who's vote was irrelevant in say, South Carolina, and you didn't like Kamala Harris, why would you bother to turn out and vote for her? Likewise, if you were a blue state Democrat in New Jersey who thought Harris was incompetent. She was going to win your state, anyway, so why put your fingerprints on it? (BTW, this same thought process is what doomed Hillary Clinton in 2016 - she was so disliked, even among Democrats, that voters in the blue-wall states who thought she'd win without them, stayed home, rather than vote for her).
To me, this is the simple explanation for why Trump won the popular vote, gained ground nearly everywhere, but barely won the swing states, while the GOP lost every swing state Senate race except for Pennsylvania, and only won the House by 3 votes.
I think a better explanation is that Kamala had 100 days. (And if you think she was incompetent, she did a HELL of a job in 100 days, uniting the party, raising money, and turning out the vote.) But her opponent had an 8 year head start.
So, if you're Kamala, your best bet is to run triage. Don't put a lot of resources into CA– you're winning there anyway. Same with FL– you're losing there, anyway. Focus on the handful of swing states you need to win. Maybe add in a couple more like NC just to make Trump spend resources in a state he can't afford to lose.
This explains why did better in swing states than the rest of the country– running a 100-day campaign, she basically mailed the rest of the country in (she had to). It also explains why people like Gallego ran ahead of her– they had more time to build a brand and a coalition.
That is certainly a viable analysis. We'll probably never know which of us is right.
That said, I do think Kamala is basically incompetent, and that she sucks at politics. This was evidenced during her 2019 campaign and unpopular vice presidency. That said, given the circumstances, I admit she was a part of a pretty damn good campaign, run by the Biden experts/team that won in 2020. They might have beaten Trump again, had they had a decent candidate and more time. She played her part well. She did what she was told. Kept her head down at first, stayed out of the spotlight, and let the "vibe" do its thing. The party was just so relieved to have a candidate that could campaign, her numbers couldn't help but improve. She didn't do a press conference for weeks after she was nominated. They protected her. In commercials, she ran as a moderate, never mentioning any of the woke positions she had taken in 2019. She gave a decent convention speech, and she beat the hell out of Trump in the debate (a really low-bar accomplishment, but it's something).
But, she couldn't hide forever, and she couldn't run against herself (and her 2019 positions). In the end, the vibe receded, and she was left with the public perception of herself from her "failed" vice presidency. Fair of not, her vice presidency was massacred in the media for four years. By November, she was leaking oil badly from all cylinders. Her polls were deteriorating, and that is when the unthinkable of losing the popular vote began to become a reality. Her campaign has since admitted that they never saw internal polling suggesting she could win. Had she had more time, I think she would have lost worse.
Think of it this way, if she’d been incompetent 2024 would’ve been a wipeout. 1984 plus Congress and a bunch of governorships.
Always interesting how the women are the ones who are disliked.
I live in Missouri -- no way in hell I was going to stay home in 2024. Your theory is very flawed.
Well, one woman was a black woman who was not very good at politics, and who was defined as an "incompetent, inarticulate DEI hire", and the other was Hillary Clinton. So, I'm not sure your knee-jerk general misogyny argument holds water on those two.
And, I didn't say it was all Democrats in red/blue states, just enough of them to increase Trump's margins overall. You did not fall into that category, even though your vote didn't matter in the end.
Only people who defined Harris that way was trump and the GOP.
Neither was incompetent, inarticulate or DEI. But they were women.
That was a problem. So, maybe the solution is to stop doing what you think was the root cause of your defeat?
Elect more women. And if white boys are threatened by intelligent, accomplished and educated women, even better.
And, spent zero time trying to accommodate the views of Republicans who spent decades laying the groundwork that allowed trump to take over their party. Let them clean up their own mess but I suspect the agenda trump is implementing right now makes many Republicans very happy.