In the end, it came down to this: the American public erroneously decided years ago that the economy was in bad shape, blamed Biden, and demanded change. Other than Biden, Harris was the least credible change agent available to the Democrats. It is no wonder that she failed.
But what if she had tried harder to distance herself from Biden? Here were her options:
- BE MORE PROGRESSIVE AND DEMAND LARGE INCREASES IN THE SIZE OF THE WELFARE STATE: This would not have been persuasive, because the likelihood of getting such a program through Congress was zero, and the public had already (mostly incorrectly) decided that Biden’s spending was responsible for inflation in any event.
- LEAN MORE HEAVILY ON THE GENERATIONAL THEME: Older people vote at much higher rates than younger people. That’s why they do so well with the welfare state. This would have been suicide.
- EMBRACE WOKENESS: The American people don’t much care for wokeness, particularly in relation to trans people. This would have been suicide, too.
- TRY MORE POPULISM: Harris could have rejected the notion of a united front and spent more time bashing billionaires. Some of that was already included in her commercials. It would not have addressed her perceived weakness on inflation, and it might have cost her more votes than it won.
There are things that Harris could have done better, in my opinion. She could have come across as less rehearsed. She could have tried harder to convince the voters that they were actually better off than they were in 2020. She could have done a lot more with the climate change issue. The bottom line, however, would have remained the same–she had no plausible alternative to advocating for the status quo. That turned out to be a losing hand with an angry electorate, even with an opponent with all of Trump’s weaknesses.