When We Watch a 2024 Election Rerun - 5/5/25
There are those who believe that Donald Trump won the 2024 election by forfeit. Trump’s bombast, his questionable personal conduct, and his hyper-aggressive approach to immigration, inflation, and other public policy matters thrilled his base and repulsed his critics. But the swing voters who ultimately decided this election chose him based on their perception that he would be more effective on their top priorities than Kamala Harris, who made little impression on them at all.
To be fair to Harris, the 107 days that she was given to mount a national campaign were an absurdly small window of opportunity to become known to the voters, to establish a familiar public persona, and to lay out a compelling policy agenda. But Harris’ innate caution made a difficult challenge into an insurmountable one. By election day, large numbers of Americans told pollsters that they didn’t know enough about her to make an informed decision. So they chose Trump, who was too much, over Harris, who was too little.
At last week’s 100-day milestone of Trump’s second term, we received a strong reminder of how last year’s campaign played out. Trump began the week by signing executive orders targeting sanctuary cities and non-English-speaking truck drivers, declaring war on at least two Ivy League universities, and posting signs on the White House lawn with photos of individuals who his staff said were in the country illegally. On Thursday, Trump demoted national security adviser Michael Waltz, who was at the center of an embarrassing Signal chat scandal. A federal judge ruled that Trump had exceeded his authority in using an 18th-century law to deport migrants quickly. Many of his efforts to dramatically reduce the size of the federal government have been blocked in court. And data was released showing that the US economy has shrunk for the first time in three years, fueling fears of a recession sparked by Trump’s tariffs on foreign imports.
By week’s end, the president had told an interviewer that he didn’t know if he was required to uphold the Constitution or whether non-citizens deserved due process, talked about whether little girls had more dolls than they needed, and pointed to himself as an ideal candidate to become the next pope.
On Wednesday, Harris gave a speech to a group of progressive female leaders in San Francisco about Trump’s first months in office—and said nothing memorable at all. The former vice president presented a solid and detailed criticism of Trump’s actions since January, warned her audience about an impending economic catastrophe, and urged them to work together to build a resistance. The address could have been written by a ChatGPT application that synthesized every comment by every Democratic official since January 20.
Harris called out several leading Democrats who have been especially aggressive in their condemnation of Trump, specifically referencing Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Jasmine Crocket, and Senators Chris Van Hollen and Cory Booker, oblivious to the irony that all of them had delivered far more powerful denunciations than her own. Harris didn’t say anything wrong. She didn’t make any mistakes. But like much of her hyper-cautious campaign, the speech left no lasting impression. By the next day, it had been overwhelmed by a flood of Trump-generated controversy and completely forgotten.
Trump’s 100th day in office was also marked by a spate of polls showing how much ground he has lost with the public since November. His approval ratings are at historic lows, and his support among independents, women, young people, and Latinos has dropped precipitously. It appears that his tariffs are likely to cause precisely the type of economic upheaval that Harris predicted. But the Democrats’ numbers are even worse, and even though it appears that some of the party leaders are beginning to find their voices, there still is no credible alternative available to the American people.
Because Trump is now a president rather than a candidate, his words and actions have much more tangible consequences. So he will not win another election by default, and Democrats appear poised to regain a House majority in the midterm elections. But Harris’ reemergence last week provided a strong reminder of how he won—and that an underwhelming opposition is still propping him up.