At the same time, it is increasingly clear that Biden’s decision to run for reelection was disastrous. Had he announced he was stepping aside after the Democrats, energized by female voters turning out post-Dobbs, overperformed in the 2022 midterm elections—and when it was already clear that voters thought he would be too old for a second term—it is possible that the party could have nominated a candidate who might have created more distance between themselves and his increasingly unpopular administration. By the time Biden dropped out on July 21, however, his vice president was the only plausible choice to succeed him. Voters hated Biden, and they punished Kamala Harris for her closeness to him.
Ironically, the benefits of the Biden economy, so slow to manifest, are starting to appear. Inflation has cooled, interest rates have come down, and the cost of prescription drugs has been dramatically reduced. It was all too late. The 2024 election was a stunning rebuke to Democratic governance. Donald Trump won every swing state and the popular vote; his party will hold the presidency and, it appears, both houses of Congress. That victory reflected the most troubling conclusion from the 2024 election: This was a widespread, though not quite total, rejection of the Democratic Party and its approach to politics.
For nearly a decade, the Democratic Party’s approach to Trump has been to continuously remind voters of his character (racist, misogynistic, unhinged), his policies (extreme and punitive), and his approach to governance (chaotic and revenge-driven). From 2018 to 2022, Democrats won by centering Trump—and by arguing that they would make the government more effective and responsive and less, well, Trumpian. But over the Trump era, the Democratic Party’s own policies have always come second in their messaging: They only have to be better than the hideous Trump. On November 5, it was clear that a majority of voters rejected both the Democrats’ Trump-heavy focus and their political program.
