Harris only received five percent of Republican votes — less than the six percent Joe Biden won in 2020 when he beat Trump, as well as the seven percent won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she lost to him. While Harris won independents and moderates, she did so by smaller margins than Biden did in 2020.
Meanwhile, Harris lost households earning under $100,000, while Democratic turnout collapsed. Votes are still being counted, but Harris is on pace to underperform Biden’s 2020 totals by millions of votes.
Biden’s win was NOT a confirmation of his campaign’s correctness. That should have been an easy election but he barely won.
I didn’t say it was. I’m just saying that the main difference between Bidens campaign vs Clinton and Harris is that his bits are on the outside.
Sexism. The point being made was sexism.
The Democratic party’s policies have not severely changed between Clinton running and Harris running that would account for the lower voter turnout.
The courting of the less Trumpian Republicans and Harris not being an old white dude are the two biggest things that affected voter turnout.
The main difference is that Trump was president at the time. Before people didn’t think it could be that bad, and four years after people had forgotten the chaos (2020 election was in the middle of COVID). It was a change election, and Harris was unwilling to try to be a change candidate because it would involve saying Biden did something wrong.
People point to sexism because it’s an easy out. “The people are bad, so all we need to do is nominate a man” means it’s a simple matter of internalizing their misogyny and then we win, when the throughline of three bad elections (Biden’s was bad) is uninspiring politics about slow and steady government being all you need. In one instance we had an immediate example of what a government by an amateur outsider could do so a plea for normalcy produced some benefit, but it still didn’t knock it out of the park when everything should have been in its favor.