Why Kamala Harris’s Historic White House Bid Fell Short

In a gathering with one in every of America’s strongest unions in September at its Washington headquarters, Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned she’d defend union jobs and employees’ livelihoods higher than Donald Trump.

However leaders of the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters, lengthy staunchly allied together with her Democratic Social gathering, appeared unconvinced. When Harris argued that her Republican rival was no champion of the working class, the union bosses grilled her, questioning whether or not she and President Joe Biden had achieved sufficient for union employees, based on a Teamster chief who recounted the Sept. 16 assembly to Reuters. Inside days, the union publicly embarrassed Harris by declining to endorse a Democratic presidential candidate for the primary time since 1996.

Within the wake of Harris’ lack of the 2024 presidential election, her tense change with union leaders underscores a crucial failure of her marketing campaign: connecting with working-class voters anxious concerning the financial system and excessive costs.

Following Biden’s dramatic withdrawal simply months earlier than Election Day, Harris threw her marketing campaign collectively as if it had been an airplane being constructed whereas in flight, her advisers informed reporters. The 60-year-old former prosecutor and U.S. senator pressed a case that Trump was a menace to democracy and ladies’s rights, whereas selling a populist financial platform and reproductive freedoms.

Her entrance upended a race that her get together had regarded set to lose. She made historical past as the primary girl of colour on the prime of a significant get together ticket. She triggered a surge in enthusiasm, broke fundraising data – elevating $1 billion in lower than three months – and drew endorsements from celebrities starting from pop star Taylor Swift to actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

However Harris’ marketing campaign finally failed to beat deep-seated voter considerations about inflation and immigration – twin points that opinion polls confirmed favored Trump. Her loss underscores a profound shift in American politics over the previous decade as blue-collar voters have turned more and more Republican – a development Trump seems to have accelerated.

Harris additionally struggled to counter one other Trump-era development: a torrent of misinformation unprecedented in trendy U.S. elections. An avalanche of misrepresentations and falsehoods about her document was unfold by the previous president and amplified on right-wing web sites and media, together with conspiracy theories on points starting from migrant crime to voter fraud.

When requested by Reuters throughout the race about misinformation amplified by Trump, his marketing campaign officers sometimes both repeated the falsehoods or didn’t reply to requests for remark.

By early Wednesday morning, Trump had gained 279 electoral votes to Harris’ 223, with a number of states but to be counted. This account of how Harris misplaced relies on Reuters interviews with Harris marketing campaign staffers, White House officers, Democratic Social gathering advisors and shut allies.

It was at all times going to be a heavy raise. The U.S. has solely as soon as elected a president – Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 – who wasn’t a white man. Because the daughter of an Indian mom and Jamaican father, Harris had risen increased within the nation’s management than every other girl.

The one different girl to get as shut as she did – Hillary Clinton, defeated by Trump in 2016 – staked her candidacy partially on changing into the primary feminine president. Within the wake of Clinton’s loss, Harris resisted placing her identification on the heart of her marketing campaign, mentioned shut aides and advisors. As an alternative, she tried to provoke voters on points that mattered to girls and Black voters within the election – from abortion rights to middle-class tax cuts and housing affordability.

However these messages struggled to interrupt by at a time when many citizens had been fixated on rising shopper costs throughout the first three years of the Biden administration.

“Despite fairly strong economic growth, especially after a major global pandemic, most Americans weren’t feeling like they were getting ahead economically,” mentioned Melissa Deckman, a political scientist and chief govt of Public Faith Analysis Institute, a nonpartisan analysis agency. “The Harris campaign did not necessarily do a good job of explaining how her policies would help the middle class, or at least that message wasn’t really resonating with a lot of voters.”

A majority of voters mentioned they belief Trump extra to deal with the financial system, with 51% saying they did so in comparison with 47% for Harris, based on a preliminary nationwide exit ballot carried out by information supplier Edison Analysis. And the voters who recognized the financial system as their major concern voted overwhelmingly for Trump over Harris – 79% to twenty%.

The financial system proved to be a a lot larger concern amongst voters than reproductive rights, with 31% of voters saying the financial system mattered most in deciding how you can vote in contrast with 14% who cited abortion. The election additionally noticed a big gender hole. Harris gained 54% of girls voters within the nation, whereas Trump gained 44%, the preliminary exit polls confirmed.

The Harris and Trump campaigns and the White House didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump mentioned early on Wednesday to a roaring crowd of supporters on the Palm Seaside County Conference Heart.

ELECTORAL GOLD

The election was punctuated by dramatic twists, together with two assassination makes an attempt towards Trump and the beautiful determination by Biden to desert his re-election bid on July 21.

Democrats coalesced behind Harris with astonishing velocity, locking up her get together’s nomination inside two weeks, excited by her potential to flip the generational argument on Trump. Twenty years her senior, Trump had efficiently forged the 81-year-old Biden as a frail and confused previous man. She would flip that on its head, many Democrats hoped.

Some Democratic strategists questioned the knowledge of one in every of her first large choices: selecting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as operating mate over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a deft speaker with confirmed political energy in a must-win state. Her marketing campaign had hoped the gun-owning Walz, a liberal coverage champion and plain-speaking Nationwide Guardsman from the Midwest, would assist her win over rural white voters.

Walz had generated buzz earlier than Harris picked him by branding Trump and his operating mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, as “weird” on nationwide tv in July, profitable Democratic hearts and media consideration. Later, although, Walz gained unwelcome consideration for misstatements of his biography, together with his army service, and for an uneven debate efficiency towards Vance.

Walz and Vance did not instantly reply to requests for remark.

Nonetheless, the Harris marketing campaign believed her signature points – reproductive rights and Trump’s divisiveness – would energize a coalition of girls, Black voters, younger Individuals, independents and “Never Trump” Republicans, sweeping her to the White House.

Nicely earlier than the race started, Harris emerged as a spokesperson for abortion rights. When the U.S. Supreme Courtroom in 2022 formally reversed Roe v. Wade, declaring the constitutional proper to abortion now not existed, the setback for girls’s reproductive rights created an surprising opening for Harris.

The ruling catapulted her from the political periphery into the guts of America’s tradition wars. Opinion polls confirmed most Individuals disapproved of the courtroom’s determination – and Harris turned the face of a difficulty that Democratic strategists noticed as electoral gold.

For the primary time in Biden’s presidency, he handed a decisive challenge completely to his vp. She went on the street, talking forcefully on a topic that performed an outsized function in serving to Democrats stave off an anticipated massacre within the 2022 congressional elections. After the midterms, with the Democrats having held the Senate and swung to a slight minority within the House of Representatives, Harris was now seen as a viable future chief within the get together.

Nonetheless, even after Biden stepped apart, considerations lingered amongst some prime White House aides over the previous San Francisco district legal professional’s political abilities – together with a notion that she hadn’t made a mark as VP, her short-lived marketing campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination and her restricted expertise courting conservative voters in battleground states. Some additionally questioned whether or not she might overcome the lengthy historical past of racial and gender discrimination within the U.S.

After securing the nomination, Harris initially put a lot of these considerations to relaxation. She revitalized a beleaguered Democratic marketing campaign, attracting record-high funding and a groundswell of assist. She quickly moved forward of Trump within the polls, an indication she was sparking enthusiasm amongst voters, notably amongst girls. Trump had beforehand been seen because the front-runner, partly based mostly on his perceived energy on the financial system after a number of years of excessive inflation underneath Biden.

She aced her first large take a look at – a Sept. 10 televised debate towards Trump.

As Harris’s workforce ready for what could be her solely in-person face-off with Trump, they targeted on methods to unnerve the previous president and draw consideration to his frequent falsehoods on insurance policies, based on a number of aides concerned within the preparations. Harris holed up in Pittsburgh with advisers and carried out mock debates for the prime-time showdown, the aides mentioned.

The technique paid off. Harris appeared to get underneath her rival’s pores and skin throughout the debate. She pressed Trump on the financial system, Ukraine, healthcare, the January 2021 Capitol riots and abortion, leaving him rattled and struggling to reply.

Fundraising spiked: Her marketing campaign mentioned it raised $47 million within the 24 hours after the talk. Most voters thought Harris had gained, polls confirmed. Trump shot down presents for an additional debate, claiming he’d already overwhelmed her.

On the marketing campaign path, Harris mocked Trump’s debate efficiency, together with his remark that he had “concepts of a plan” to switch a federal well being care regulation. As she gained in polls, Harris’ marketing campaign believed she was opening up states that had been out of attain for Biden, together with North Carolina, the place the president had his narrowest loss towards Trump in 2020 and the place she was drawing even within the polls with Trump.

‘IT COULD COST US THE ELECTION’

North Carolina was the scene of her subsequent large take a look at, the late September Hurricane Helene, one of many deadliest storms to hit the U.S. within the final 50 years. The storm shifted focus from messages on the basis of Harris’ marketing campaign to the dealing with of the catastrophe by the Biden-Harris administration.

It hit simply as her lead was narrowing. Trump went on the assault, criticizing the Democratic administration’s response to the catastrophe and tying it to his strongest challenge, immigration. Because the loss of life depend rose and swathes of North Carolina lay devastated, Trump amplified and unfold falsehoods, together with a declare that Harris spent disaster-assistance cash on housing unlawful migrants.

In response to a current request for remark by Reuters about false claims about how catastrophe funds had been getting used, the Trump marketing campaign repeated accusations that cash had been spent on housing migrants within the nation illegally.

Harris lower quick a marketing campaign swing and flew to Washington on Sept. 30 for a briefing on Biden’s emergency response. On her aircraft, three staffers sat on the ground, ripping aside briefing books, changing the pages with new notes, a Reuters reporter witnessed.

The catastrophe, which killed greater than 200 individuals, marked a shift within the race, as misinformation across the administration’s response and Trump’s hard-line rhetoric on immigration gained traction. The baseless claims included that the federal government covered-up deaths, confiscated charitable donations and diverted catastrophe funds to assist immigrants. Harris’ marketing campaign struggled to deal with each the false claims and voters’ considerations about an uptick in unlawful border crossings throughout Biden’s presidency.

One jurisdiction that illustrated the dangers for Harris was Buncombe County, a North Carolina Democratic stronghold of about 280,000 individuals hammered by the storm. In its aftermath, Democrats stopped concentrating on probably persuadable Republican voters there due to considerations that they had turn out to be too hostile amid the misinformation, Kathie Kline, Buncombe County Democratic chair, informed Reuters. In the long run, Trump gained the state.

Because the race tightened by October, and polls indicated a toss-up, alarm unfold amongst Democratic strategists.

They targeted on shoring up the so-called Blue Wall of Democratic states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Eight years in the past, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton, he breached the Blue Wall by profitable all three states, every by lower than a share level. In 2020, Biden gained them again. Holding the Blue Wall now was Harris’ greatest path to the White House, the strategists reasoned. However that they had an issue: Michigan and the Gaza Battle.

Michigan’s massive inhabitants of Arab Individuals and Muslims helped cement Biden’s 2020 victory within the state. Trump turned off many of those voters in his first time period, partially by banning immigration to the U.S. from a variety of Muslim nations early in his tenure.

Within the race’s ultimate stretch, Muslim and Arab-American voters informed Reuters they had been upset Harris didn’t distance herself extra from Biden’s unwavering assist of Israel throughout the Gaza conflict. Within the ultimate weeks, Trump aggressively courted their vote. Many mentioned they’d sit out the election or vote Republican.

Harris staffers knew that disillusioned Muslim and Arab-American Democrats had been a danger. “It could cost us the election,” mentioned a senior Michigan operative for Harris in July.

The marketing campaign finally concluded it was unattainable to completely win again these voters. To offset their loss, marketing campaign officers mentioned they targeted within the ultimate weeks on marshaling sufficient assist from union employees and Black voters in Detroit, the nation’s largest Black-majority metropolis.

ECONOMIC THREATS

However few points threatened Harris like inflation.

Her marketing campaign had hoped the financial restoration from the pandemic could be a profitable challenge. Development is markedly extra sturdy within the U.S. than in different main industrial nations. Inventory-market indexes are close to document highs.

As an alternative, the difficulty eroded Democratic assist all through a lot of 2024 as union employees and non-college-educated white voters broke for Trump, polls confirmed. Sharp will increase in housing and meals prices pissed off voters, overshadowing a powerful job market. Trump blamed Harris for the spike throughout her and Biden’s time in workplace.

Whereas most unions have lengthy supported Democratic candidates, rank-and-file employees lately have moved behind Trump, proving a decisive think about his victory. There have been some constructive indicators for Harris. The AFL-CIO, the biggest federation of unions, noticed a surge in feminine members supporting Harris and prepared to volunteer for her, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler informed Reuters.

Within the ultimate weeks of the race, Harris’ momentum appeared to have stalled, with polls displaying her edge over Trump narrowing. By mid-October, the race was a lifeless warmth in essential states.

A pronounced hole in polling between women and men had emerged, too. Whereas Harris lower away on the Republicans’ longstanding edge with white voters total by gaining floor with white girls, Trump gave the impression to be boosting his benefit with males.

Harris shifted technique in an try to win over extra males and Republicans. The marketing campaign dispatched operating mate Walz on a tour in mid-October to achieve male voters. Harris additionally held marketing campaign occasions with former lawmaker Liz Cheney, one in every of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics and one of the outstanding conservatives to endorse the Democrat. Days later, Trump recommended Cheney ought to face gunfire in fight, drawing outrage amongst Democrats and pundits.

The vp additionally sharpened her assaults on Trump. In an Oct. 29 speech billed as her closing argument, Harris warned of the risks of one other Trump presidency. He was “unstable” and sought “unchecked power,” she informed a rally held on the spot in Washington the place Trump addressed his supporters earlier than they attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. With a well-lit White House behind her, she forged herself as a defender of democracy, unity and freedom.

She additionally sought to reassure voters about the price of residing. Trump’s proposals to lift tariffs would quantity to “a 20% national sales tax” on imported items, she mentioned. She vowed to “protect hard-working Americans who aren’t always seen or heard.”

In the long run, not sufficient of these Individuals believed her.

(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)