Ryan Montgomery, Staff Writer | 

Judgment day hath come for the Democrats. It is a cold day in hell and the devil has long since put on his winter coat. That is to say in flowery biblical language– the Dems lost hard and have no idea how this happened. Most pollsters predicted a close, if not decisive, Harris win.

At this moment, we don’t quite have all the requisite information to say unequivocally why Trump won or Harris lost. At the time of my writing this, the votes aren’t even fully counted, so maybe I’m wrong about everything and this can be a humorous time capsule of my hubris. Usually, hindsight is 20/20 but right now we’re sitting at 15/20 or something like that, I’m not sure, I’m not an optometrist. Because of this, this article will be the best estimation of one wayward Policy Studies student’s take on the election.

The holy grail of this exercise in retrospection is the 2024 electoral exit polls. These are the demographic questions asked by pollsters and pundits which tell us what people voted for which candidate and why. They are invaluable for analysts and politicians alike as they show why candidates win elections. With these, we can see which strategies paid off for each candidate and which ones sunk them. For the purpose of this article, we’ll be using the CNN and NBC exit polls.

To say the least– the polls do not look good for Harris. The only demographic that Harris won a larger vote over Biden was black women. Her support in every other demographic shrunk from 2020 – only holding onto core Democratic groups such as women and black voters.

53 per cent of women voters voted for Harris, four per cent less than Biden’s 57 per cent. While Trump’s support among voters with and without a college degree increased from the last election, Harris’ support among educated voters waned compared to Biden’s in 2020.

Men of all colours, creeds, and credentials leaned for Trump. The only exception being black men, who leaned Democrat-albeit by a lower margin than in 2020.

Trump also made significant inroads with the Latino vote. The majority of Latino men voted for him, a demographic which Biden won handily in 2020. Trump also substantially increased his support among Latina women, a traditionally Democratic group. Latino voters in Pennsylvania only narrowly voted Democrat over Republican –so sadly no, despite as funny as it would have been, Tony Hinchcliffe was not a deciding force in the 2024 presidential election. Much as Trump’s celebrity gaffes didn’t hurt him, Harris’ celebrity support did not win her much love from voters. Alas, endorsements from Taylor Swift do not win elections.

Biden shoved a stick in the Democrat’s spokes in more ways than one, namely by refusing to step aside. By holding on for 75 per cent of the term till the bitter end, Biden prevented the Democrats from creating any semblance of a unified platform before the election. Dropping out three months before voting day threw the Democrats into a tailspin – brevity, it turns out, is not the soul of presidential campaigns. Initially, his belated yet abrupt retirement created a rally-’round-the-leader effect for Harris, with her approval rapidly surging in the polls. This newfound support, however, proved fleeting for the vice president.

The novelty of having a presidential candidate who can form a cohesive sentence quickly wore off for the American electorate and the polls between the two candidates closed into essentially a dead heat. Perhaps the Democrats thought that Biden would be the sacrificial lamb on which all their sins could be blamed, giving them a clean slate to run a new campaign. Maybe the captain could go down with his ship, taking the blame for the high cost of living and the border crisis down with him. However, any benefits of abandoning Biden were then immediately counteracted by picking his largely unpopular vice president (VP).

In the 2020 Democratic primaries, Harris only polled in the single digits. Whether she liked it or not, Harris was joined at the hip to Biden. She had no real opportunities to distance herself from his unpopular administration. A VP can’t take shots at their own president without shooting themselves in the foot. From the outset, this gave Trump the edge when it came to rhetoric as he was able to portray himself as the outsider candidate once more, despite already having been president, maybe outsider is a state of mind.

Ultimately, Trump connected better with voters on the ground. In the era since Obama’s presidency, the Democrats have been fighting populism with lectures on what voters ought to want. Whereas Trump went to the working class and played to their discontent at lost jobs and their Reaganite superpower status in decline, the Democrats took it for granted that voters would see Trump as obviously unfit for office. However, in an election dominated by the cost of living crisis, the southern border, and foreign wars, Trump successfully presented himself as the stronger candidate on all three issues.

On the economy, Harris was at a disadvantage as she was a member of the current administration and therefore could be tangentially blamed for the high cost of living, regardless if it was her fault or not.

On immigration, Harris shifted her opinion notably to the right after becoming the nominee. Prior to being chosen, Harris, along with the Biden administration, focused primarily on opening pathways for undocumented migrants, with border security being a relatively minor stance in their immigration policy. However after she was chosen as the nominee, Harris shifted her rhetoric to one of tough border security and cracking down on asylum seekers. In other words– she became a Republican. Harris tried to fight Trump on his own turf and just as Mark Twain warned, he dragged her down to his level and beat her with experience.

Finally, in regard to foreign affairs, Biden oversaw a term marked by the Ukrainian war and the reigniting of conflict in Israel and Gaza. Both of these were characterized by policy failures by the Biden administration, with the president being unable to bring Russia to the negotiating table, and unable to effectively restrain Israel. Whether he can do so or not, Trump claimed that he could end the wars almost immediately. Hereas Harris effectively towed the Democratic party line. In all fairness to Harris, this was an unwinnable fight for her. She could not make any effective statement on the Middle East without either alienating the pro-Israeli democratic centre, or the pro-Palestinian left. This split in the party gave Trump the edge on foreign policy, deserved or not.

It remains to be seen what a second Trump presidency will look like. Predictions range from a Republican-town golden age where good ol’ boys live down on the bayou drinkin’ sweet tea and mama’s in the kitchen cookin’ apple pie. Or to the perishing of the government of, by, and for the people into an Atwoodian dystopia. Regardless of what happens, it will make for good TV, which for the Canadian populace who treats American politics as a spectator sport, that might be all that matters.

Despite this turmoil to the south, we, as Canadians, can all take part in reciting this sacred mantra, thank the lord for the southern border.

Ryan Montgomery is a Staff Writer for The Reflector 2024-2025.