Polls showed Harris had problems — media and Dems didn’t want to face them

We went done dozens of swing-state polls complete nan past fewer months, and location was thing for everyone successful nan stories, arsenic readership metrics and fierce statement astir nan surveys showed.

There were plentifulness of polls reflecting nan mainstream media statement and bias, suggesting Kamala Harris had nan concealed condiment and would beryllium powered into nan White House by women, by young voters and by a divers conjugation that represented a generational choice.

The precocious constituent of Harris hysteria was evidently that career-ending Selzer canvass that showed her flipping GOP stronghold Iowa, pinch nan women who elected blimpish Kim Reynolds politician apparently fresh to move connected a dime and ballot for a campaigner whose policies and position were diametrically opposed to nan values of nan Hawkeye State. 

Why were Dems and their media adjuncts truthful consenting to bargain in? Because they had a unsighted spot their argumentation positions were truthful “correct” that they ne'er had to beryllium explained, overmuch little challenged, and stake connected vacuous narratives alternatively than clear exposition of nan measurement forward. 

Harris supporters respond connected predetermination nighttime astatine nan vice president’s Howard University watch party. AFP via Getty Images

Harris and nan soon-to-be-repudiated Tim Walz painted themselves arsenic nan avatars of Generation X, mounting a nonstop opposition to Donald Trump and nan boomer mentality. And successful that context, they didn’t request to talk overmuch to governmental media, avoiding adversarial gaggles and property conferences pinch group from crossed nan governmental spectrum successful favour of scripted interviews pinch friends podcasters.

Months ago, I wrote astir Harris’ effort arsenic a “vibes” campaign. But nan problem was it stayed there, pinch overmuch of her support not predicated connected what nan Biden-Harris management has done successful nan past 4 years but rooted successful nan hypothetical telephone for “what tin be, unburdened by what has been,” arsenic vapid arsenic a “Live, Laugh, Love” motion successful an Airbnb.

That aspirational imagination required voters to representation spread nan reality. That for 4 years, nan Biden-Harris management owned “what has been.” Everything from rate devaluation and diversity, equity and inclusion pushes that elevated definite connected marginalized group to nan winners’ circle astatine nan disbursal of nan mediate people to a miserable, inchoate overseas argumentation that drove escalations successful nan Middle East and mobility marks passim Asia and Latin America. 

Did voters notice?

Lots of polling said so, pointing to nan existent anticipation Trump would summation his ballot stock astatine Harris’ expense, driving what nan president-elect rightly calls a “historic realignment.”

Trump and his friends were dismissed, for example, erstwhile they targeted support of black men — a group ignored by galore erstwhile GOP candidates to their peril. 

Atlas Intel polling showed Trump supra 20% and moreover 30% pinch achromatic voters successful immoderate plaything states a fewer days earlier nan election, numbers that whitethorn person seemed for illustration an outlier to immoderate readers a week agone but are validated now successful nan aftermath of nan GOP campaigner apt sweeping nan plaything states.

Trump’s entreaty to Hispanic voters likewise was discounted because galore mainstream observers couldn’t reconcile themselves to nan reality that galore Latinos want a beardown system and a separator that doesn’t let criminals from astir nan world to transverse it and found themselves permanently, surviving disconnected payer largesse while contributing thing but menace and mayhem. 

And Muslim voters — there’s different group Trump targeted, amid a historical weakness from Harris among it. Polls showed Harris had activity to do, but what her run and nan Democratic Party did was onslaught Green Party campaigner Jill Stein and Cornel West arsenic GOP plants while clumsily triangulating connected Israel and Hamas. That’s nan benignant of point Bill Clinton whitethorn person pulled disconnected successful his premier but Harris, a maladroit and workmanlike leader by comparison, ne'er could fig out.

But here’s nan agleam side: She doesn’t person to deliberation astir nan rumor again.

Democrats, connected nan different hand, person plentifulness to deliberation about. Including nan very existential mobility of what they guidelines for beyond “Well, we’re not Trump.”

Sen. Marco Rubio put it succinctly: “The Republican Party is now a multi-ethnic, multi-racial conjugation of hard-working Americans who emotion their country.”

It’s not because they don’t cognize what’s going on; rather, it’s because they spot it clearly. They spot Trump to undo nan harm of nan past fewer years. And they didn’t spot Harris aliases nan statement that installed her without a superior conflict to do it.