We all expected a nail-biter that would take a week to decide. In the end, it wasn’t even that close. The Democrats are going to have do some serious soul searching and here are some of the lessons, I think they need to learn.

NB: one area I won’t focus on is the economy. It definitely cost the Democrats but is something that was less in their control (The Fed like the BOE was slow to raise rates when inflation took off)

Meritocracy matters

The Democrats need to rediscover a belief in meritocracy. When Biden ran for the nomination, he promised to select a black woman as his VP candidate. This severely limited the pool of candidates and it wasn’t a surprise that Kamala Harris got the call, despite failing badly in her own campaign for president.

Similarly, when Harris was picking a VP, she overlooked one of the strongest candidates, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania (supposedly because he was Jewish) in favour of the bumbling Tim Walz of Minnesota.

Sometimes you need to be ruthless

One interesting difference between the right and left is the degree of ruthlessness. The right are sometimes “too” ruthless meaning that in the UK, the average Tory leader has the same shelf life as a Man Utd manager (or in Liz Truss’ case, that of a Watford manager).

Conversely, the left often stick with candidates even if they are obviously duffers. Joe Biden promised to be a bridge to the next generation (I.e. a one term President). Not only did he undermine Harris by giving her a bad portfolio (the border), but he then ran again.

At this point, a little-known congressman Dean Phillips stuck his head above the parapet and said that Biden wouldn’t win due to his age and poor ratings, but the party big guns all sat on their hands. In fact, Gavin Newsom made a show of going on every TV station to show how conspicuously loyal he was.

If you really think that Trump is the next Hitler, surely it was your job to pick the best possible candidate, hurt feelings be damned.

What made it worse was that the DNC didn’t run a single primary debate. If this had happened, then maybe Biden’s deficiencies might have emerged sooner.

Media bias is a double-edged sword

In the UK, the broadcast media have certain standards of neutrality they have to follow during an election campaign. In the US, all the broadcast networks except Fox are partisans for the Democrats. This means that the networks give the Democrats an easier time than the Republicans.

A notable example of media bias from the election campaign was this:

JD VANCE: President Trump was actually in Aurora, Colorado, talking to people on the ground and what we’re hearing, of course, Martha, is that people are terrified by what has happened with some of these Venezuelan gangs.

ABC news anchor: Senator Vance, I’m going to stop you because I know exactly what happened. I’m going to stop you. The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns. A handful of problems.

JD VANCE: Only, Martha, do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem, and not Kamala Harris’s open border? Americans are so fed up with what’s going on and they have every right to be and I really find this exchange, Martha, sort of interesting because you seem to be more focused with nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has said rather than acknowledging that apartment complexes in the United States of America are being taken over by violent gangs.

I think this backfires in two ways:

• the media went soft on Biden when he was clearly struggling. In retrospect, the Democrats really needed Biden face to more scrutiny earlier as the lack of pressure allowed him to hang on too long.
• Bias means that the public openly mock the networks now e.g. “let’s go Brandon”. The consequence is that, the networks can highlight serious deficiencies with the Republicans, but people tune them out (the boy who cried wolf).

Lawfare backfired

The Democrats have been arguing whether to blame Biden or Harris. I would suggest that Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, deserves a fair share of opprobrium.

Manhattan D.A. – Alvin Bragg

The bare facts are that Michael Cohen paid hush money to Stormy Daniels and was reimbursed by Trump. The federal authorities investigated and decided there was no case to answer.

Bragg then investigated, but under New York law this would normally only count as a misdemeanor (a slap on the wrist). Bragg upgraded this to a felony by saying that it was in aid of unspecified other crimes.

Trump then faced charges put together by a Democrat prosecutor, a Democrat judge and a jury in Manhattan, one of the most Democrat voting counties in the US. You don’t have to be a K.C. to see something might look a bit off here.

While Democrats got a lot of pleasure out of saying “Donald Trump convicted felon” (especially after the “lock her up” chant directed at Hillary Clinton), it allowed Trump to portray himself as a martyr. “They’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.”

Authenticity matters

One of the standout moments of the campaign was Donald Trump serving at McDonalds. This was a potshot at Harris, who claimed to have worked at McDonalds as a teenager, but fed into a wider issue for Harris and Walz of inauthenticity.

Tim Walz went on a pheasant hunt but struggled to load his gun and was dubbed Elmer Fudd.  Meanwhile, Harris was unable to explain why she had changed her mind on fracking.  The impression it gave was of a liberal elite trying to pretend that they were something different from who they were actually were.  Trump, by contrast, looked the part in McDonalds because he reportedly eats their food regularly.

The Democrats need a wider base of support

Something that should worry the Democrats is how narrow their base of support has become. Harris won Minnesota but only won 9 out of 87 counties. In Pennsylvania, Harris narrowly lost and won 9 out of 67 counties. In Oklahoma, which Harris heavily lost, she didn’t win a single county out of 77.

We are seeing a pattern across the US, where we there are a few islands of blue in a sea of red. In Minnesota, the Democrats rack up the votes in the Twin Cities, which outvote the rural areas. In Pennsylvania, there is a balance between the cities and the smaller counties. In Oklahoma, Oklahoma City is too small to carry the state by itself.

Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma Presidential election 2024 – source CNN

It wasn’t always this way, though. If we look at the same 3 states in 1988 (Bush Sr. vs. Dukakis). In Oklahoma, Dukakis won a lot of the rural counties but lost the state due to Bush winning Tulsa and Oklahoma City. In Minnesota, Minneapolis still voted Democrat but not as much as some of the smaller counties.

Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma Presidential election 1988 – source Wikipedia

Extreme policies

A follow issue from the Democrats’ narrow base of support is that it has led them into policy problems. In the UK, we would think of the Republicans as having extreme policies, but the US exit poll showed the Democrats are seen as extreme too.

One of the main issues is crime. After the death of George Floyd, the left demanded to defund the police. What this led to was a cut in police funding in many cities and then, inevitably, a rise in crime (particularly in poorer areas).

Similarly, if we look at the border, many on the left seem to want to have a complete open border policy and have discussed defunding ICE (the border agency). This led to a situation where there were 10 million border encounters (someone crossing the border illegally or someone who crossed legally and was refused) during the Biden years vs. 2.4 million under Trump (source: BBC Verify)

Finally, it’s worth mentioning abortion. Some Republican states have very restrictive abortion laws, but many Democrat states have gone to the opposite extreme. Tim Walz’s Minnesota recently enacted a law allowing abortion at any time (I.e. almost at full term)

So, what should they do next?

If I was a Democrat, I would focus on winning the heartland again. The lack of success here doesn’t just hurt the Democrats in the electoral college but in the Senate and the House as well. If we look at the next Senate elections in 2026, there are 2 pickup opportunities in blue and purple states – Maine and North Carolina.  After that, there are the light red states of Iowa and Ohio and then you are into deep red states

Going back to the 1990s, the Democrats used to be able to win in states like Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee. They need to work out how to win in these deep red states again.

For me, the Democrats simply can’t afford another coastal liberal. Their 2028 presidential should be a governor from the heartland. Fortunately, there are several great candidates. The aforementioned Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan or Andy Beshear of Kentucky.

Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer and Andy Beshear

Gareth of the Vale