No, Harris Would Not Have Won If She'd Just Done the Opposite Of Everything She Did

There's an episode of The Simpsons where Homer attempts to coach Bart in miniature golf.

Homer: Keep your head down, follow through.

[Bart putts and misses]

Homer: Okay, that didn't work.  This time, move your head and don't follow through.


Democrats are experiencing something like that in the aftermath of the election. That is, the misbegotten belief that we would have won if we'd simply done the opposite of everything we did or did not do. This belief is wrong but has taken hold in the party to the point of mass delusion.

Kamala Harris ran a virtually flawless campaign. Before she became the nominee, her approval rating stood at 38%. By October, it had risen to 45%, exceeding that of Donald Trump. Her biggest accomplishment was pulling virtually even with Trump on the question of whom voters trust more on the economy; Trump had led Biden by 15% on that metric. Harris handily defeated Trump in their lone debate. She also raised a staggering $1.5 billion from donors, putting Republicans at a considerable resource deficit. On the issues on which she campaigned, she had overwhelming bipartisan support. And she did it all in just over 100 days.

The truth is, it was always extremely unlikely Democrats could win in 2024. Two reasons:
1. No party in power has ever won another term given such dismal voter sentiment. Specifically:
* 52% of voters say they are worse off than they were four years ago.
* Nearly half of voters say the economy was the most important issue of the election. But 75% rate the economy as fair or poor, only 25% as excellent are good. And 62% say the economy is getting worse.

2. The pandemic. From Cooper Burton of ABC News: "Among democracies that held elections this year, over 80 percent saw the incumbent party lose seats or vote share from the last election. That includes democracies of all kinds and in all corners of the globe."

And yes, I predicted Harris would win, despite an environment that I'm now describing as extremely unfavorable to her. I still think my call for Harris was reasonable under the circumstances. The polls underestimated Trump's support for the third consecutive election.

But as soon as the vote came in, the second guessing of Democratic strategy started. And Democrats, progressive thinkers and other pundits all seem to have the same reaction: Harris would have won if only she'd taken the opposite tack on one important issue or another. And of course no one offering this sage advice can agree with anyone else.

1. According to Pete Buttigieg, the campaign was too online, and did not make enough in-person connections.
The Daily Show's Jon Stewart says the opposite, mocking the Harris campaign for too much direct contact with swing-state voters.

2. Senator Bernie Sanders says the problem is that Harris abandoned the working class by not running to the left and talking more about social justice.
Senator John Fetterman says Harris should have run harder to the right, talking more about border security.

3. Some say Harris needed to embrace the Palestinian movement.
On the contrary others say Harris needed to distance herself from the Palestinian movement.

4. Or, you name it:
Harris was sunk by "woke" issues. (Never mind that Harris did not run on woke issues at all).
Harris needed to talk less about abortion.
Harris should not have asked billionaires to campaign with her.
Harris should not have tried to win over Republicans by campaigning with Liz Cheney.
Harris spent too much on celebrity appearances.


I thought this noise would die down after a few days, but it hasn't. I just read an article from Lucian K. Truscott IV on nationalmemo.com explaining that the problem was that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were too cheerful. Yes, you read that right. "Kamala Harris’ smile, on display everywhere she went, was genuine. So was Tim Walz’s jolly demeanor. But voters didn’t want someone nice to take command of an economy and a country they saw as failing them." So Harris should have stopped smiling and being positive. Anything else?

Yes. According to Democratic pundit James Carville this weekend, if Joe Biden had dropped out sooner, Democrats would have won the election, "And it wouldn’t have been that close because we would have had so many frickin’ talented people that were running." So apparently the problem was that the nominee was not someone other than Harris herself. For the record, polls taken around the time Biden dropped out did not show any potential Democratic nominees other than Harris polling any better than she did against Trump.

Exactly twenty years ago, I was devastated by John Kerry's loss and did not know how to move forward. But Democrats found a way. And Donald Trump's second term is shaping up to be a complete complete train wreck as he appoints a cabinet made up entirely of insane criminals, conspiracy theorists and sexual predators, while at the same time embracing tariffs and deportations that will wreck the economy. If Trump does enough damage, the Democratic party will start performing better even if it can't find another Barrack Obama.

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2024 Final Predictions. I'm Calling It A Blue Wave. Here's Why.

Harris to win the electoral college 325 to 213.

Here's why I'm calling all the swing states for Harris:
** More than one-third of the vote is already in. We know the demographics of which groups are turning out in force and which are not. We also have high-quality exit polls.
** Women are voting far more than men. Even a massive turnout by men on election day is hardly likely to close the gap. Harris leads female voters by 14% while Trump leads by only 6% with men.

** The vote is showing extraordinary crossover support for Harris by registered Republicans. Here's an example:
North Carolina:
Actual early voters: 55% Harris, 43% Trump, 3% others
Early voter party ID: Dem 33%, GOP 34%, Ind 33%
- Assuming virtually Democrats and about 60% of independents are voting for Harris, to get to 55% of the total vote Harris must be getting in excess of 10% of Republicans. PA and WI show similar rates of defection of Republican voters. The rate is even higher in AZ, GA and MI.

** Harris is doing well with the most crucial voting block: seniors. Minorities are not defecting to Trump the way Republicans have hoped. Younger men are not turning out the way Trump needs.

** Harris has outstanding get-out-the-vote operations. Trump's are a disaster.

** Harris has a massive fundraising lead.

** Democrats are way ahead in voter enthusiasm in a key Gallup poll.

** Late-deciders are breaking for Harris.

** And finally, a bombshell poll dropped yesterday: Harris by 3% in Iowa. This is from the highly-respected Selzer organization, who, for example, correctly predicted that Trump would win Iowa by 14% in 2020. If Harris is doing anything like as well as this poll suggests, Democrats will have a good night on Tuesday.

The Senate

Current Senate: 51 D, 49 R

New Senate: 50 D, 50 R

This forecast for the Senate may be overly-optimistic, but here we go.
* The Republicans will pick up West Virginia.
* Jon Tester has survived close contests before in Montana, but I think this one is out of reach. The Republican will probably win. (Or maybe Tester survives but we lose NV or OH).
* I'm calling Texas for Democrat Colin Allred. The polls are within the margin of error, and I expect Harris to lose Texas by only 3 points or so. That's close enough for Allred to knock off Ted Cruz, whom nobody likes.

The House

Current House: 221 R, 214 D

New House: 222 D, 213 R

Gubernatorial

Democrats to pickup North Carolina.

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Remembering Phil Donahue. When Cable News Found Out It Had One Liberal, It Fired Him.

Giant of TV talk Phil Donahue passed away at age 88 last month. I can't say I ever watched his shows, but I do remember one thing about him. He certainly proved that TV cable news does not have a liberal bias.

Today there is widespread belief that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake, even among many conservatives. American support for the invasion was in excess of 70% when the war started. Five years later, that support had fallen by half.

In early 2003 Phil Donahue had the highest rated show on the young MSNBC network. George W. Bush had told a whole series of lies to gin up an illegal invasion of Iraq. Donahue invited anti-war voices on his show. For this, Donahue was fired.

Amy Goodman, producer of the news podcast Democracy Now! has described what happened at MSNBC: "In 2003, Phil Donahue was fired from his primetime MSNBC talk show during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was the most popular talk show on MSNBC at the time. The problem wasn’t Phil’s ratings, but rather his views. An internal MSNBC memo warned Donahue was a, quote, “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” providing a, quote, “home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity,” unquote."

Phil's own description of the situation: "I think what happened to me, the biggest lesson, I think, is the — how corporate media shapes our opinions and our coverage. This was a decision — my decision — the decision to release me came from far above. This was not an assistant program director who decided to separate me from MSNBC. They were terrified of the antiwar voice. And that is not an overstatement. Antiwar voices were not popular. And if you’re General Electric, you certainly don’t want an antiwar voice on a cable channel that you own; Donald Rumsfeld is your biggest customer. So, by the way, I had to have two conservatives on for every liberal. I could have Richard Perle on alone, but I couldn’t have Dennis Kucinich on alone. I was considered two liberals. It really is funny almost, when you look back on how — how the management was just frozen by the antiwar voice. We were scolds. We weren’t patriotic. American people disagreed with us. And we weren’t good for business."

Jeff Cohen, senior producer of Donahue's show, has described the situation at the network in 2003 in similar terms, "But “the suits” ruined our show when they took control and actually mandated a quota system favoring the right wing: If we had booked one guest who was antiwar, we needed to book two that were pro-war. If we had one guest on the left, we needed two on the right. When a producer suggested booking Michael Moore—known to oppose the pending Iraq war—she was told she’d need to book three rightwingers for political balance."

I'm glad Phil Donahue lived long enough to see the lies and and warmongering politics of George W. Bush be completely discredited. And also that he lived long enough to see MSNBC come to its senses and hire great progressive journalists like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes. MSNBC isn't perfect, but perhaps it has recognized that in America, if the news seems a bit too "liberal" it's because (as Stephen Colbert once said), "Reality has a well-known liberal bias".

 

 

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