Kathianne
11-02-2024, 03:31 PM
Then again, I'm white, female, college+ educated, voted for Trump. Analysis is always interesting to me, will be interesting to see who wins and how it turns out:
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Journal Writers Reflect on the Trump vs. Harris Campaign
Biggest surprise? Better vice-presidential choice? We have answers to these and other questions.
Nov. 1, 2024 4:37 pm ET
Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris arrives for a rally in Ann Arbor, Mich., Oct. 28. Photo: drew angerer/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
What development in the Trump-vs.-Harris campaign most surprised you?
William McGurn, columnist: If Donald Trump wins, he will claim his victory was the greatest in American history. The surprising thing is that he’d have a good case. Before, during and after his presidency, he faced an FBI investigation, violent protests at his inauguration, a stacked Jan. 6 congressional committee, two dubious impeachments, special prosecutors, dozens of felony indictments and an unrelenting assault by a press that abandoned even the pretense of objectivity. His support grew, in part because voters sense that the elites in both parties look down on them and he doesn’t.
Karl Rove, columnist: That both candidates were so ill-prepared for important moments they knew were coming. Kamala Harris’s campaign told reporters she would try getting under his skin at the debate, and when she did by belittling his rallies, he fell for it. She knew she’d be asked in interviews what she would have done differently from President Biden, and she couldn’t think of one example.
Would Democrats have been better off sticking with Joe Biden and why?
Mene Ukueberuwa, editorial board member: Ms. Harris’s strength compared with Mr. Biden is harder to see today than it was in July. The label “California progressive” stuck to her as voters learned about her record, whereas some voters still see Mr. Biden as the moderate “Scranton Joe.” Even so, Mr. Biden’s age and record sank his prospects. Nearly any Democrat would have outperformed him.
Tunku Varadarajan, contributor: Yes, though it isn’t a slam-dunk. Mr. Biden suffered the weirdest defenestration in history, continuing in his office after his party deemed him unfit to run for it. Voters likely would have forgotten the debate after a month. With Mr. Biden, the Democrats wouldn’t have lost as many male voters as they have with Ms. Harris. In the event of a loss, Democrats could blame it on Mr. Biden. If Ms. Harris loses, they’ll need to question the direction of their party.
William McGurn: If Ms. Harris loses, expect leaks from the White House along the lines of I’m the only guy to beat Donald Trump and they still dumped me for her. But that doesn’t mean Mr. Biden would have won. His disastrous debate exposed his mental decline, and everything he did or said after would be seen through that prism. The Democrats’ real mistake was to wait so long rather than force him out a year ago. Even if Ms. Harris loses, she made it a closer race than Mr. Biden would have.
Would Republicans have been better off with a different nominee and why?
Kyle Peterson, editorial board member: Probably. About two-thirds of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, as Mr. Biden has presided over inflation and a porous border. So why is the race close at all? Because Republicans nominated Mr. Trump. During the primaries, some polls showed Nikki Haley leading Mr. Biden by 9 points or more. Yet she wouldn’t have been a shoo-in for the nomination if Mr. Trump had skipped 2024. Would Ron DeSantis have prevailed? Would Greg Abbott have run? Who knows.
Allysia Finley, columnist: Despite Mr. Trump’s liabilities, he has unique valuable assets, including his record of peace and prosperity and his knack for tapping into America’s populist zeitgeist. Is his net value as a candidate greater than Nikki Haley’s? She would have appealed to a broader group of voters—especially college-educated white suburbanites. But she might have inspired less enthusiasm among working-class voters, including minorities, because she doesn’t have Mr. Trump’s presidential record and everyman appeal.
Mene Ukueberuwa: GOP primary voters would accept no alternative to Mr. Trump. That bet looks surprisingly close to paying off. But although voters prefer Mr. Trump to Ms. Harris on most issues, his denial that he lost the 2020 election is still the biggest drag on Republicans’ chances of retaking the White House. It’s likely that Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley would have a bigger lead, offering a change of direction without the Jan. 6 baggage.
Who was the better vice-presidential choice, Tim Walz or JD Vance, and why?
Gerard Baker, columnist: Mr. Vance. Mr. Walz was picked for two main reasons: first, he wasn’t Josh Shapiro, who was toxic for too many in the Democratic Party; second, as a kind of mascot, a caricature of a regular guy intended to balance Ms. Harris’s image as a Bay Area uber-progressive. But the campaign quickly exposed him as not just a buffoon, but a buffoon with uber-progressive views and an unreliable relationship with the truth. Mr. Vance added needed intellectual heft to the GOP ticket, fleshing out Mr. Trump’s instinctive populism with reason and argument and cementing the party’s political realignment.
Karl Rove: Mr. Walz. Vice-presidential candidates don’t have much of an impact on the election’s outcome, but the Minnesota governor hasn’t tied himself into as many knots as Mr. Vance has over campaign missteps. Why couldn’t Mr. Vance simply say the comedic insult of Puerto Rico at Sunday’s Madison Square Garden rally was a mistake rather than trying to dismiss it? He would have come across as a decent human being rather than an insensitive politician.
Collin Levy, editorial board member: Mr. Vance earned negative headlines for dumb remarks about “childless cat ladies” and Haitian migrants, but he was redeemed by his performance in the vice-presidential debate. He demonstrated an ability to explain complex policies and tie them back to core American ideals. His debate fluency allowed voters to see past the chaos of the campaign and imagine that future candidates may be able to form complete thoughts and appeal to voters’ intelligence, not their worst instincts.
Kyle Peterson: Mr. Vance, though both picks were uninspired. His elevation pleased Mr. Trump’s base, while doing little to expand it. But the same goes for Kamala Harris’s choice of Tim Walz, given his Minnesota record. The difference is that Mr. Vance has proved more adept at answering—and parrying—tough questions, and if Ms. Harris loses Pennsylvania, passing over Mr. Shapiro will be a blunder for the ages.
What was each candidate’s biggest mistake?
Allysia Finley: Kamala Harris’s was sprinting to the left in 2019 to win the Democratic nomination. This year she has been forced to walk back many of her prior positions, reinforcing voters’ perception that she’s two-faced. Mr. Trump’s campaign has been a comedy of unforced errors, but his refusal to enlist Nikki Haley to stump for him is probably his greatest.
Tunku Varadarajan: Mr. Trump’s biggest mistake is to believe that he is incapable of committing a mistake. His blithe certitude could be his undoing.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump at a rally in Greensboro, N.C., Oct. 22. Photo: erik s lesser/Shutterstock
Barton Swaim, editorial page writer: Mr. Trump’s failure to prepare for his debate with Ms. Harris sent his campaign into a downward spiral. Irate, flummoxed—he looked and sounded a lot like the scary figure Democrats claimed him to be. Her biggest mistake was to assume he would always conform to that image. In the final weeks of the campaign, she talked about little but his menace to democracy, while he served fries at McDonald’s, told uproarious stories with Joe Rogan, drove a garbage truck and delivered his speech in a reflective vest. She would have been better off introducing herself than trying to convince America that this showman is a fascist.
James Freeman, assistant editor: Ironically, Mr. Trump’s biggest unforced error was placing too much trust in a major media outlet. He consented to participate in a debate hosted by ABC News despite the network’s relentlessly negative coverage. Ms. Harris’s was declining to attend the Al Smith Dinner, and not only because she needlessly insulted Catholics. The event, featuring scripted comedic speeches, was tailor-made for a campaign seeking to define itself with vague joyfulness. Every zinger she directed at Mr. Trump could have been replayed generously on networks like ABC.
Kyle Peterson: Neither pitched to the median voter. Ms. Harris promises to raise taxes by $5 trillion, while restructuring the Supreme Court. Mr. Trump insults IQs, thinks out loud about 1,000% tariffs, rages about punishing CBS, brings a 9/11 truther to a 9/11 memorial, pledges to let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild on the medicines,” and so forth.
What was the worst policy either candidate proposed?
Matthew Hennessey, deputy editorial features editor: Ms. Harris’s vow to sacrifice the Senate filibuster at the altar of abortion rights is both bad policy and politically short-sighted. Americans may be reluctant to ban abortion outright, but that doesn’t mean they’re comfortable with it. Certainly not as comfortable as the Democratic platform, which urges no restrictions whatever. As happened after 2013, when Harry Reid took the nuclear option for nominees, Democrats will regret doing this—maybe sooner than they realize. Republicans will gladly push their own priorities through a filibuster-free Senate when they have 51 votes, the House and the presidency.
Gerard Baker: A wide and competitive field, this. It was a race to the bottom for bad ideas. For Mr. Trump, I’d pick the ever-expanding cornucopia of tax cuts for special groups: tips, interest on car loans, Social Security payments, etc. For Ms. Harris, the first policy announcement out of her mouth: the proposal to quell inflation with measures to ban “price-gouging” by companies, especially retailers. Thank goodness the campaign discussion was decided by more important things than policy, like garbage and joy.
Collin Levy: Donald Trump’s worst policy idea may be his promise to raise tariffs to 10% or 20%. It’s a mistake to treat voters like they don’t understand basic economics. Mr. Trump claims the tariffs will be paid by the foreign suppliers, but of course they will be absorbed by importers and American consumers.
Kyle Peterson: Does Mr. Trump really think he can end the income tax, which raises roughly $2 trillion, by replacing it with steep tariffs on about $3 trillion of total U.S. imports? Yet for a combination of hazardousness and earnestness, it might be hard to beat Kamala Harris’s endorsement of Supreme Court “reform.” The judiciary is the branch of government that’s functioning and insulated from partisanship, including when it turned away Mr. Trump’s bogus 2020 fraud claims. Remaking the court in a fury would be destabilizing, as even Joe Biden’s commission warned.
What is your most counterintuitive or unconventional observation about the election?
Allysia Finley: Kamala Harris may draw fewer black voters than Joe Biden would have. While she advertises her middle-class upbringing, she can come off as a hoity-toity elite who is out of touch with ordinary folks, including blacks. While lacking Mr. Biden’s common touch, she is saddled with his unpopular record.
Tunku Varadarajan: If Mr. Trump wins, I’d attribute his victory to his being unpresidential. He deliberately embraced a political style that is more mayoral. Nothing is too picayune for his attention. Everything is ad hominem. People, not principles, are his focus. There’s a grubbiness to his campaign that’s mayoral, and a folksiness, too. It brings him closer to America’s heart.
Collin Levy: If Donald Trump wins, it will be in part because of the ebb of Never Trump voters. Many of the Republicans who swore off Mr. Trump for his bluster, unpleasant personality and lack of conservative principles have moved on. They may still dislike him, but they figure the country survived the first term and that a repeat is preferable to court-packing and left-wing policies. Liz Cheney’s wholesale embrace of Kamala Harris has further alienated these GOP voters, who are still philosophically conservative and see Ms. Harris’s progressivism as anathema.
Kimberley A. Strassel, columnist: One surprising feature of this election has been the inverse relationship between Kamala Harris’s pander to unions and actual Harris union support. The “most pro-labor administration in American history” may notch a modern Democratic low among union members. The mistake was thinking labor-law assists would deliver loyalty. It couldn’t make up for inflation, border chaos, international disorder and cultural stances that offend many mainstream Americans—union workers included. Thus the Teamsters and Firefighters unions’ shocking decisions to forgo a Harris endorsement, and the potential for Donald Trump on Tuesday to collect record union votes.
Karl Rove: Early voting is looking very different from 2020. Republicans are running ahead in Nevada, where Democrats have always beaten the GOP by big margins, and in North Carolina. And Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may get their mail-in ballots tabulated much faster than they did four years ago. While these states didn’t change their misguided laws that mail-in ballots can’t be worked before the polls open on Tuesday morning, perhaps they’ve got more people and better procedures in place to work them faster than in 2020. Let us hope.
Barton Swaim: Why did Democrats nominate an unaccomplished San Francisco progressive with few political skills? For the same reason they favored harsh lockdowns during the pandemic, the same reason they refuse to use force against America’s enemies—an insane fear of risk. Nominating a presidential candidate by an open primary is risky. Democrats did the safe thing—a reminder that sometimes the safe thing is the dumbest risk of all.
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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/journal-writers-reflect-on-presidential-campaign-biggest-surprise-best-vp-choice-and-more-a10112ac?st=gzhXJP&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
OpinionCommentary
Follow
Journal Writers Reflect on the Trump vs. Harris Campaign
Biggest surprise? Better vice-presidential choice? We have answers to these and other questions.
Nov. 1, 2024 4:37 pm ET
Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris arrives for a rally in Ann Arbor, Mich., Oct. 28. Photo: drew angerer/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
What development in the Trump-vs.-Harris campaign most surprised you?
William McGurn, columnist: If Donald Trump wins, he will claim his victory was the greatest in American history. The surprising thing is that he’d have a good case. Before, during and after his presidency, he faced an FBI investigation, violent protests at his inauguration, a stacked Jan. 6 congressional committee, two dubious impeachments, special prosecutors, dozens of felony indictments and an unrelenting assault by a press that abandoned even the pretense of objectivity. His support grew, in part because voters sense that the elites in both parties look down on them and he doesn’t.
Karl Rove, columnist: That both candidates were so ill-prepared for important moments they knew were coming. Kamala Harris’s campaign told reporters she would try getting under his skin at the debate, and when she did by belittling his rallies, he fell for it. She knew she’d be asked in interviews what she would have done differently from President Biden, and she couldn’t think of one example.
Would Democrats have been better off sticking with Joe Biden and why?
Mene Ukueberuwa, editorial board member: Ms. Harris’s strength compared with Mr. Biden is harder to see today than it was in July. The label “California progressive” stuck to her as voters learned about her record, whereas some voters still see Mr. Biden as the moderate “Scranton Joe.” Even so, Mr. Biden’s age and record sank his prospects. Nearly any Democrat would have outperformed him.
Tunku Varadarajan, contributor: Yes, though it isn’t a slam-dunk. Mr. Biden suffered the weirdest defenestration in history, continuing in his office after his party deemed him unfit to run for it. Voters likely would have forgotten the debate after a month. With Mr. Biden, the Democrats wouldn’t have lost as many male voters as they have with Ms. Harris. In the event of a loss, Democrats could blame it on Mr. Biden. If Ms. Harris loses, they’ll need to question the direction of their party.
William McGurn: If Ms. Harris loses, expect leaks from the White House along the lines of I’m the only guy to beat Donald Trump and they still dumped me for her. But that doesn’t mean Mr. Biden would have won. His disastrous debate exposed his mental decline, and everything he did or said after would be seen through that prism. The Democrats’ real mistake was to wait so long rather than force him out a year ago. Even if Ms. Harris loses, she made it a closer race than Mr. Biden would have.
Would Republicans have been better off with a different nominee and why?
Kyle Peterson, editorial board member: Probably. About two-thirds of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, as Mr. Biden has presided over inflation and a porous border. So why is the race close at all? Because Republicans nominated Mr. Trump. During the primaries, some polls showed Nikki Haley leading Mr. Biden by 9 points or more. Yet she wouldn’t have been a shoo-in for the nomination if Mr. Trump had skipped 2024. Would Ron DeSantis have prevailed? Would Greg Abbott have run? Who knows.
Allysia Finley, columnist: Despite Mr. Trump’s liabilities, he has unique valuable assets, including his record of peace and prosperity and his knack for tapping into America’s populist zeitgeist. Is his net value as a candidate greater than Nikki Haley’s? She would have appealed to a broader group of voters—especially college-educated white suburbanites. But she might have inspired less enthusiasm among working-class voters, including minorities, because she doesn’t have Mr. Trump’s presidential record and everyman appeal.
Mene Ukueberuwa: GOP primary voters would accept no alternative to Mr. Trump. That bet looks surprisingly close to paying off. But although voters prefer Mr. Trump to Ms. Harris on most issues, his denial that he lost the 2020 election is still the biggest drag on Republicans’ chances of retaking the White House. It’s likely that Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley would have a bigger lead, offering a change of direction without the Jan. 6 baggage.
Who was the better vice-presidential choice, Tim Walz or JD Vance, and why?
Gerard Baker, columnist: Mr. Vance. Mr. Walz was picked for two main reasons: first, he wasn’t Josh Shapiro, who was toxic for too many in the Democratic Party; second, as a kind of mascot, a caricature of a regular guy intended to balance Ms. Harris’s image as a Bay Area uber-progressive. But the campaign quickly exposed him as not just a buffoon, but a buffoon with uber-progressive views and an unreliable relationship with the truth. Mr. Vance added needed intellectual heft to the GOP ticket, fleshing out Mr. Trump’s instinctive populism with reason and argument and cementing the party’s political realignment.
Karl Rove: Mr. Walz. Vice-presidential candidates don’t have much of an impact on the election’s outcome, but the Minnesota governor hasn’t tied himself into as many knots as Mr. Vance has over campaign missteps. Why couldn’t Mr. Vance simply say the comedic insult of Puerto Rico at Sunday’s Madison Square Garden rally was a mistake rather than trying to dismiss it? He would have come across as a decent human being rather than an insensitive politician.
Collin Levy, editorial board member: Mr. Vance earned negative headlines for dumb remarks about “childless cat ladies” and Haitian migrants, but he was redeemed by his performance in the vice-presidential debate. He demonstrated an ability to explain complex policies and tie them back to core American ideals. His debate fluency allowed voters to see past the chaos of the campaign and imagine that future candidates may be able to form complete thoughts and appeal to voters’ intelligence, not their worst instincts.
Kyle Peterson: Mr. Vance, though both picks were uninspired. His elevation pleased Mr. Trump’s base, while doing little to expand it. But the same goes for Kamala Harris’s choice of Tim Walz, given his Minnesota record. The difference is that Mr. Vance has proved more adept at answering—and parrying—tough questions, and if Ms. Harris loses Pennsylvania, passing over Mr. Shapiro will be a blunder for the ages.
What was each candidate’s biggest mistake?
Allysia Finley: Kamala Harris’s was sprinting to the left in 2019 to win the Democratic nomination. This year she has been forced to walk back many of her prior positions, reinforcing voters’ perception that she’s two-faced. Mr. Trump’s campaign has been a comedy of unforced errors, but his refusal to enlist Nikki Haley to stump for him is probably his greatest.
Tunku Varadarajan: Mr. Trump’s biggest mistake is to believe that he is incapable of committing a mistake. His blithe certitude could be his undoing.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump at a rally in Greensboro, N.C., Oct. 22. Photo: erik s lesser/Shutterstock
Barton Swaim, editorial page writer: Mr. Trump’s failure to prepare for his debate with Ms. Harris sent his campaign into a downward spiral. Irate, flummoxed—he looked and sounded a lot like the scary figure Democrats claimed him to be. Her biggest mistake was to assume he would always conform to that image. In the final weeks of the campaign, she talked about little but his menace to democracy, while he served fries at McDonald’s, told uproarious stories with Joe Rogan, drove a garbage truck and delivered his speech in a reflective vest. She would have been better off introducing herself than trying to convince America that this showman is a fascist.
James Freeman, assistant editor: Ironically, Mr. Trump’s biggest unforced error was placing too much trust in a major media outlet. He consented to participate in a debate hosted by ABC News despite the network’s relentlessly negative coverage. Ms. Harris’s was declining to attend the Al Smith Dinner, and not only because she needlessly insulted Catholics. The event, featuring scripted comedic speeches, was tailor-made for a campaign seeking to define itself with vague joyfulness. Every zinger she directed at Mr. Trump could have been replayed generously on networks like ABC.
Kyle Peterson: Neither pitched to the median voter. Ms. Harris promises to raise taxes by $5 trillion, while restructuring the Supreme Court. Mr. Trump insults IQs, thinks out loud about 1,000% tariffs, rages about punishing CBS, brings a 9/11 truther to a 9/11 memorial, pledges to let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild on the medicines,” and so forth.
What was the worst policy either candidate proposed?
Matthew Hennessey, deputy editorial features editor: Ms. Harris’s vow to sacrifice the Senate filibuster at the altar of abortion rights is both bad policy and politically short-sighted. Americans may be reluctant to ban abortion outright, but that doesn’t mean they’re comfortable with it. Certainly not as comfortable as the Democratic platform, which urges no restrictions whatever. As happened after 2013, when Harry Reid took the nuclear option for nominees, Democrats will regret doing this—maybe sooner than they realize. Republicans will gladly push their own priorities through a filibuster-free Senate when they have 51 votes, the House and the presidency.
Gerard Baker: A wide and competitive field, this. It was a race to the bottom for bad ideas. For Mr. Trump, I’d pick the ever-expanding cornucopia of tax cuts for special groups: tips, interest on car loans, Social Security payments, etc. For Ms. Harris, the first policy announcement out of her mouth: the proposal to quell inflation with measures to ban “price-gouging” by companies, especially retailers. Thank goodness the campaign discussion was decided by more important things than policy, like garbage and joy.
Collin Levy: Donald Trump’s worst policy idea may be his promise to raise tariffs to 10% or 20%. It’s a mistake to treat voters like they don’t understand basic economics. Mr. Trump claims the tariffs will be paid by the foreign suppliers, but of course they will be absorbed by importers and American consumers.
Kyle Peterson: Does Mr. Trump really think he can end the income tax, which raises roughly $2 trillion, by replacing it with steep tariffs on about $3 trillion of total U.S. imports? Yet for a combination of hazardousness and earnestness, it might be hard to beat Kamala Harris’s endorsement of Supreme Court “reform.” The judiciary is the branch of government that’s functioning and insulated from partisanship, including when it turned away Mr. Trump’s bogus 2020 fraud claims. Remaking the court in a fury would be destabilizing, as even Joe Biden’s commission warned.
What is your most counterintuitive or unconventional observation about the election?
Allysia Finley: Kamala Harris may draw fewer black voters than Joe Biden would have. While she advertises her middle-class upbringing, she can come off as a hoity-toity elite who is out of touch with ordinary folks, including blacks. While lacking Mr. Biden’s common touch, she is saddled with his unpopular record.
Tunku Varadarajan: If Mr. Trump wins, I’d attribute his victory to his being unpresidential. He deliberately embraced a political style that is more mayoral. Nothing is too picayune for his attention. Everything is ad hominem. People, not principles, are his focus. There’s a grubbiness to his campaign that’s mayoral, and a folksiness, too. It brings him closer to America’s heart.
Collin Levy: If Donald Trump wins, it will be in part because of the ebb of Never Trump voters. Many of the Republicans who swore off Mr. Trump for his bluster, unpleasant personality and lack of conservative principles have moved on. They may still dislike him, but they figure the country survived the first term and that a repeat is preferable to court-packing and left-wing policies. Liz Cheney’s wholesale embrace of Kamala Harris has further alienated these GOP voters, who are still philosophically conservative and see Ms. Harris’s progressivism as anathema.
Kimberley A. Strassel, columnist: One surprising feature of this election has been the inverse relationship between Kamala Harris’s pander to unions and actual Harris union support. The “most pro-labor administration in American history” may notch a modern Democratic low among union members. The mistake was thinking labor-law assists would deliver loyalty. It couldn’t make up for inflation, border chaos, international disorder and cultural stances that offend many mainstream Americans—union workers included. Thus the Teamsters and Firefighters unions’ shocking decisions to forgo a Harris endorsement, and the potential for Donald Trump on Tuesday to collect record union votes.
Karl Rove: Early voting is looking very different from 2020. Republicans are running ahead in Nevada, where Democrats have always beaten the GOP by big margins, and in North Carolina. And Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may get their mail-in ballots tabulated much faster than they did four years ago. While these states didn’t change their misguided laws that mail-in ballots can’t be worked before the polls open on Tuesday morning, perhaps they’ve got more people and better procedures in place to work them faster than in 2020. Let us hope.
Barton Swaim: Why did Democrats nominate an unaccomplished San Francisco progressive with few political skills? For the same reason they favored harsh lockdowns during the pandemic, the same reason they refuse to use force against America’s enemies—an insane fear of risk. Nominating a presidential candidate by an open primary is risky. Democrats did the safe thing—a reminder that sometimes the safe thing is the dumbest risk of all.