"Vice President Kamala Harris’s resounding defeat at the hands of former President Donald Trump is not only a rejection of the Democratic Party and what it stands for, but also of the mainstream media, and the narrative they created for Harris.
Why is that? Quite simply, because both Harris and Democrats fundamentally mistook the mood of the electorate. The mainstream media went along with the illusion that Harris and the Democrats operated under, despite substantial evidence to the contrary.
Specifically, Democrats came to believe that by turning over the campaign to Harris’ “new way forward” and “politics of joy,” without a primary process or any serious discussion of the issues, they could somehow circumvent two key facts about the electorate. The first was that President Biden’s approval rating (36 percent per CNN) rivaled that of former President Jimmy Carter on the eve of his overwhelming 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan (37 percent per Gallup polling).
Second, the share of voters believing the country is headed in the “right direction” was nearly identical between that 1980 election and the 2024 election, and not in Democrats’ favor. Less than one-fifth (17 percent) of Americans felt that way in a pre-election Ipsos poll, and a similar 20 percent said the same ahead of the 1980 election, according to the Roper Center.
Taken together, the fact that the American people wanted a new direction, new policies, and new leadership, doomed Democrats in 1980 as it doomed Kamala Harris this week."
