As a phone bank volunteer, I hoped to counter the Republican attacks and half-truths, but people really believed them, says journalist and podcaster Oliver Hall

Summary

Gender bias played a significant role in Kamala Harris’s defeat, with many voters—often women—expressing doubts about whether “America is ready for a female president.”

Some said they “couldn’t see her in the chair,” or questioned if a woman could lead, with one even remarking, “you don’t see women building skyscrapers.” Though some voters were open to persuasion, this often became a red line.

Oliver Hall, a Harris campaign volunteer, found that economic concerns, particularly inflation, also drove voters to Donald Trump, despite low unemployment and wage growth touted by Democrats.

Harris was viewed in conflicting ways, seen as both too tough and too lenient on crime, as well as ineffective yet overly tied to Biden’s administration.

Ultimately, Hall believes that Trump’s unique appeal and influence overshadowed Harris’s campaign efforts.

  • @LostMyRedditLogin
    6•12 days ago

    Read the article everyone. This summary starting with gender bias is kind of bad. The main issue was the economy at the top.

    • @[email protected]
      8•12 days ago

      The economy concern is straight up the issue, but the twist is that it has to be the economy as seen by people who don’t understand or don’t care about macro economics. GDP, inflation suppression, and all the other measures Biden did to help the economy wasn’t helping families buy groceries. And you can forget that trip to Disneyland. Buying power was still fucked. Now the carryover of those measures combined with the long-term bad but short term positive jolts of the next trump administration is going to increase buying power for just long enough for Donnie boy to take credit.

      If you find yourself with extra money in the next 4 years, remember it’s borrowed against your future. Better to save it, or heavily reduce your debts than to get that new car it take that family trip.

    • HubertManne
      4•12 days ago

      This again is why I have so little faith now. The economy is such a cut and dry thing. Inflation went up in april after biden took office and obviously did not come from his actions when he had barely started. Inflation was largely tamed by increasing interest rates and looking at the fed rates from obama onward you can see where they dropped under trump and my satan I can’t believe folks don’t remember trump bully pulpitting the fed to drop them. he was whining insistently about them ruing his economy (which given his deep state rhetoric we know what he was implying). oh man then I would get folks with the inflation is caused by xyz. yeah its caused by a lot of things but the main way a president (really the fed) effects them in the short term (short term being years) is with the interest rate and we have a very direct example in the last few years. The idea that trump is the better choice for the economy is so friggin ridiculous.