Summary
In the 2024 election, Democrats excelled with highly engaged voters but lost ground with less-engaged voters, particularly younger, working-class, and non-college-educated individuals.
Vice President Kamala Harris won among voters who closely follow politics by 5 points but trailed Donald Trump by 14 points among less-engaged voters.
Democratic strategists highlighted failures in outreach, reliance on narrow data models, and ineffective messaging.
Critics noted the party’s brand is often defined by extreme voices, while Republicans capitalized on dissatisfaction with the economy and national direction, resonating with everyday frustrations.
It’s about having a coherent message.
What exactly were Kamala’s biggest goals? In other words, if she could accomplish just three things in office, what would those three things have been? Can anyone answer that question? Does anyone know?
Because you certainly can with Trump. He wanted to deport millions of people, raise a bunch of tariffs, and exterminate trans people. Those were the three things he ran on.
What Democrats repeatedly fail to understand is that having a policy paper on your website is NOT THE SAME THING as actually having policy positions. You can’t just point to something on your website, written by a staffer, as what you support.
I voted for Kamala, but I still to this day have not a damn idea what the woman actually stood for. Sure, she had official policies, but she never had any core issues that she hammered on again, and again, and again. She never had an effective ‘elevator pitch’ for why she should be president, other than just that she isn’t Trump.
Democrats need to pick 3-5 things for an election cycle, 3-5 major policy positions. And then they, all of them, need to repeatedly and endlessly hammer home those things.