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Did Trump Win The Election, or Did Kamala Lose?

Austin Smith

Published: November 23, 2024 10:07 am

Key Points:

• Kamala Harris’s campaign lost momentum despite an early lead after suffering from contradictory messaging and overlooked critical voter concerns including inflation, border security, and cultural issues.
• Donald Trump consistently and clearly connected with Americans on these topics to win the popular vote and electoral college
• Among strategy errors that alienated the Democratic base and contributed to Harris’s loss were underusing key campaign assets and aiming for moderate Republican voters.
• Also: Are you ahead, or behind for retirement? Click here to take a quick quiz and see for yourself. 

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Austin: Hello, my name is Austin Smith, and I’m joined again by Michael Muir, our defense and military and politics expert at 24 7 Wall Street. Michael, it’s been a little while since we’ve spoken, and not much has happened. Uh, I’m kidding. Of course, it’s, uh, the, the, the docket is full today and I just want to jump in with what is clearly the biggest story of the last few weeks, and that is the election, uh, and the, let’s call it a decisive victory of former president, soon to be next president Trump.

[00:00:25] Austin: And I am curious. Uh, did Trump win or did Harris lose? It seems like there’s a lot of explanations happening. Hindsight bias is always 2020, but, uh, we should remember that it was decidedly unclear on elect, you know, going into election night, uh, and then Trump is leaving with a decisive victory. So what happened here?

[00:00:45] Austin: Did he win? Did Harris lose or is it something else entirely?

[00:00:48] Michael Muir: Yeah, I think one thing we have to be cautious about is we don’t have all of the details yet. Um, you know, people want to make that snap judgment 24 hours after the election when a lot of the post election data is still coming in. But the picture that is emerging. is that we see if we compare the numbers from 2020 to 2024 for the Democrats, there is a pretty sharp in turnout.

[00:01:12] Michael Muir: Um, so there’s a fair to say that, um, you know, Harris lost the election, but I think there’s a lot more, you know, that’s, you know, a very simplified conclusion to draw. Um, Trump’s support was largely consistent. Um, I think they made some inroads with, uh, young white men and Latino males, I think was the main Um, you know, sort of post, uh, election analysis that we have coming in so far.

[00:01:36] Michael Muir: Um, whereas Harris, and we don’t, again, we don’t have the full picture, but we do see that, um, she lost quite a lot of support and crucially in the swing states. Now, that was a real surprise. Um, know, when we had a previous discussion, I think about the down ballot races, I thought the Senate was looking very favorable, uh, to Republicans.

[00:01:53] Michael Muir: And sure enough, that’s, uh, that’s what’s happened. Um, I thought the house would flip back, uh, to the Democrats. That didn’t happen. Um, there were a few. Seats that did flip New York’s 22nd, which is, um, I thought that would happen. Sure enough. It did. Um, but what was really surprising was that Trump didn’t just win, the Electoral College.

[00:02:09] Michael Muir: He won the popular vote too. And that’s the first Republican candidate to do so since 2004. so that is a real damning indictment of the campaign, that Harris ran. Um, but I, you know, we can go over. know, some of the strategic errors that were made. and, uh, just the general, uh, some other problems with the campaign. one I thought was the inconsistency of the messaging.

[00:02:31] Austin: Right, right,

[00:02:34] Michael Muir: the Harris campaign were really emphasizing that they’re doing, you know, they’re running this to protect and preserve democracy, but their message was very undermined by the fact that, Harris was not elected as the nominee.

[00:02:45] Michael Muir: She was appointed. So that immediately undermines the core aspect of the message. Um, secondly, I thought the rhetoric that was coming from campaign was not very productive. you know, you, when you are contrasting yourself, you know, Trump is going to be Trump. I think everyone at this point has made up their mind.

[00:03:03] Michael Muir: I don’t think you’re going to convince anyone to change their, their opinion, their view. but this idea of reaching across the aisle while at the same time describing, you know, base, the Trump base is garbage and deplorable and all that stuff. That’s not a unifying message. Now, you know, the immediate response to that is going to be, but Trump, but you know, you’re supposed to be running, you know, the counter to that you’re not supposed to be divisive, supposed to be unifying, but then having said that, I thought a huge amount of time and resources were wasted. Pursuing the so called moderate Republican vote, you know, this idea of campaigning the swing states with Liz Cheney. I, you know, when I was watching that, I, my first thought was, who is this for? Liz Cheney is extremely unpopular with Democrats and Republicans alike. That’s probably the only unifying aspect of her,

[00:03:52] Austin: right.

[00:03:53] Michael Muir: you know, and campaigning in Wisconsin, which is a key, key state for the Democrats. Um, you know, it made no difference. It didn’t move the needle at all. Uh, Republicans. You know, surprisingly enough vote for Republicans, you know, you’re not going to convert enough to be a significant factor in the election. And the downside to this flawed strategy is you will turn off the base. you know, if you look at the popular vote results for the last, know, 20 plus years, there are more Democrats and more independents who lean Democrat than Republicans.

[00:04:24] Michael Muir: So by pursuing the moderate Republican vote, you turn off a lot of the base. And I think that was a key error that the Harris campaign made. Now, of course, you know, there are a lot of circumstances behind all this. You know, this was a late entry into the race after the primaries had already taken place. You know, would we have seen a different result if the Democrats had, had, had, had an open primary, um, and a genuine who had popular support? Well, that’s one of those we’ll never know. Um, you know, so how much responsibility should Biden take for this defeat? Probably quite a lot. Um, Harris, you’re coming in late.

[00:04:59] Michael Muir: She is, you know, if we, if we take a step back and just look at global trends, uh, politically, we are seeing incumbents are taking hits left, right, and center. And it almost doesn’t matter who the ruling party was, you know, this, these long term after effects of COVID and dealing with the rampant inflation, um, wages, all these problems that are created, um, you know, almost, it’s almost a universal trend globally that the incumbents are taking a hit.

[00:05:25] Michael Muir: And it is a real strategic error, I think, to run someone from the same administration that was, you know, ceding so much support, you know, the approval rating for the Biden administration was really low. And rightly or wrongly, Harris is going to be tied to that administration’s failures or achievements,

[00:05:43] Austin: Yeah.

[00:05:43] Michael Muir: the vice president’s.

[00:05:44] Michael Muir: I

[00:05:46] Austin: certainly the, you know, it seems like this was Harris’s election to lose, and she did lose it based on, as you said, consistency of messaging. And a lot of the data that I saw suggested the three biggest issues were, you know, depending on region or demographic border security, inflation or cultural issues.

[00:06:03] Austin: These are the three biggest issues on average. But when we think about how those issues mapped to the messaging of the Democratic Party, uh, it was not clear, whereas Donald Trump was very consistent and had a clear message for his base. So if those were the three biggest issues in the election, uh, you know, nowhere in the top 15 of the issues that I saw, People voted on were preserving democracy, which was very much the message that it seems that Kamala Harris was running on, uh, she had great momentum when the baton was passed, albeit she only had 100 days, but she had a very early spike in popularity and her odds and she was pulling very well.

[00:06:40] Austin: I believe around day 50. So from that point forward, it seems like it was her campaign to lose. And and she did just just on not speaking to the specifics of the issues.

[00:06:49] Michael Muir: sure, and I think she squandered a lot of that early momentum with some of the decisions she made. Now I wonder if that is just, you know, almost the sort of consultants coming in and saying, you know, we’ve got to have a big tent. And the trouble is, if you have a tent that’s too big, you’re not going to appeal to anybody. You know, I keep harping on about the chasing the moderate Republican vote, but it is just such a flawed strategy. You know, Biden tried it in 2020. I think the final numbers were 94 percent of Republicans, registered Republicans who voted, voted for Trump. And the same numbers happen this time around. Um, I just think it’s, it’s a, you know, very flawed strategy.

[00:07:25] Michael Muir: It doesn’t work and it’s been proven not to work, but they keep doing it. Um, and I just think. You know, it’s just odd. It’s just an illogical move on its own, and I just think that, I don’t know if it was just a case of just wanting to play it safe. Um, you know, just trying to because, you know, the swing state that I think she was very confident winning the popular vote, and honestly, I thought she would, too.

[00:07:46] Michael Muir: Um, I was pretty surprised by that. Um, think just trying to have this, you know, being the candidate for everybody in the swing states, um, you know, is what it seems to be what presidential elections come down to. But, you know, fundamentally, if you offer someone a little bit of what they like versus the other candidate offering, you know, a lot of the things they like, you know, they’re not going to go for the diet version.

[00:08:06] Michael Muir: They’re going to go for, you know, the full version. And then in doing so, as I say, in doing so, it just was really turning off a lot of, uh, progressive minded voters. Um, so that’s really backfired. Um, I thought the choice of vice president was solid. Um, you know, historically, um, choosing a VP from Minnesota actually just generally does work.

[00:08:26] Michael Muir: Um, but I, I think they underutilized Walls as well. I think he was a pretty good speaker. Um, but I think they got him to tone it down and he came out pretty hot starting out. And they just moderated their message and turned off a lot of voters. And I think it was just apathy that kind of went out in the end.

[00:08:42] Austin: Yep, and we could diagnose from reverse diagnosis for for ages and never have a perfect answer. But I’ll say, you know, did Trump win or did Kamala Harris lose? Given the early lead that she had, you know, about 50 days out from the election. I would say it was both, you know, she both lost. She, she, you know, she lost this race by giving up a substantial lead and Trump won by having a message that was stuck to the issues that were more relevant to voters

[00:09:08] Michael Muir: the issues. You know, that’s a really important point you bring up because again, inconsistency of messaging. We’re seeing a lot of like, um, know, people in their day to day lives. Are not feeling this apparently amazing economy. We’re supposed to be having, you know, it’s, it feels very separated.

[00:09:23] Michael Muir: You know, people are worried about inflation about the price of groceries. They don’t want to hear about, you know, how well the stock market’s doing when they’re struggling day to day. Um, so that was a big problem. And, you know, what you, you know, we can debate how, uh, realistic or effective Trump’s proposed, uh, proposed policies would be, but at least he’s acknowledging a problem that people are feeling, uh, similarly with the border.

[00:09:44] Michael Muir: I think the Harris campaign was all over the place there. so I think what we probably learned from this is, you know, detailed specific policy positions aren’t really going to sway voters in the same way as acknowledging the pain that they feel and at least saying, you know, we have a solution, even if they don’t offer, um, you know, specific policies towards that.

[00:10:05] Austin: perfectly said, uh, well, let’s leave it on that and we’ll move on to the next topic. Thank you for your insights, Michael. Okay.