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.
One of the frustrations I had was her solution to the housing problem was to just build more houses and give out some money. Sure great, but what I wanted to hear, and I think many other also wanted to hear, was her talking about corporate hording of housing and what she would do about that situation. But she just ignored it completely and so did Biden.
I think instead if she came out swinging against corporate greed, even if she actually did nothing about it, would have given her more votes.
My one hope out of this is that the massive swing to the right will be countered with more vocal progressives.
She didn’t even really have a plan to build more houses, just some subsidies that wouldn’t put a dent in the problem. She should have proposed something ambitious that people could get excited about. The crazy thing is Biden had some big ambitious policies that he actudlly enacted like the Inflation Reduction Act that dwarf anything Kamala campaigned on. It’s the opposite of a winning approach that sells the stars and delivers the moon.