Two reasons why Kamala Harris failed to win the election

There are two reasons why Kamala Harris was defeated in spectacular style in the presidential election on November 5.

The obvious one was her failure to distance herself from the Biden administration when the US public were crying out for change.

A less obvious reason was her choice last July of folksy, left-leaning Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

According to US statistician and founding member of ‘She Shoulda Picked Shapiro’, Nate Silver, told the New York Times, “I think it's relatively clear now that she made a mistake.”

“Waltz was mediocre in the debate and he’s been mediocre and nervous in his public appearances,” added the founder of polling aggregator 538 and author of the “Silver Bulletin”.

He added that while the debate was not a decisive factor, it was Walz’s “one job,” so he “should really nail that debate.”

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who was a running mate favorite, was seen as someone who might have helped Democrats win the key swing state, according to Associated Press.

Before Walz, was named, Pennsylvania was ahead of Trump. But late October that shifted and Trump edged ahead, according to Silver’s aggregator 538 poll.

But Tim Walz cannot be expected to shoulder more than a small share of the responsibility for the Democrats crushing defeat in an election the polls were calling a dead heat.

The main issue appears to have been Harris clinging to the Biden legacy, despite the fact Biden’s approval ratings were down at percentage rates in the late 30s, early 40s.

On Fox news, “Daily Show” host Jordan Klepper mocked Harris’ answer to the question of what she would do differently from Biden, one that was put to her on the ABC show “The View”. “Not a thing comes to mind” Harris replied.

This prompted Klepper to respond on his own show, “Come on, come on, Madam VP, this is an opportunity to differentiate yourself from an unpopular administration. Surely you would do something different.”

Despite the miraculous recovery of the US economy from the pandemic, as flagged up by The Financial Times, Americans are clearly dissatisfied and angry at the high inflation rates.

According to GOP strategist Matt Terrill, “When it comes to the economy, inflation, and border security, this is ultimately going to be a referendum on the Biden-Harris administration,” the US Sun reports.

"If this really is a change election, Harris has to find a way to talk about how she will be different – particularly as it relates to inflation and border security,” Terrill added.

Clearly, Harris did not succeed. The BBC’s US Editor Sarah Smith said on November 6 that when it comes to immigration and the Latino vote, the Democrats misunderstood what second and third generation Latinos want.

“Democrats have assumed for a long time that if they talk about not wanting to be too strict on immigration, allowing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and allowing more to come in, that would be welcomed by the Latino community,” Smith said on the “Today” program.

“But voters who have been here for generations and who consider themselves to be Americans, don’t necessarily want to see a loose border policy, they take the very same view as a lot of other demographics in America on this,” she explained.

Meanwhile, former Republican congressman Jake LaTurner, told the “Today” program, “Kamala Harris had a lot of headwinds. Two thirds or over two thirds of Americans think we’re heading in the wrong direction.”

“It's not as though all these tens of millions of Americans like everything that Donald Trump says or does but for many of them, particularly first time voters, they feel for the first time in their life somebody is willing to fight for them, somebody is going to disrupt the system,” he continued.

“For a lot of folks, they felt right at home with Donald Trump and they felt like he was going to deliver on the economy and on immigration,” he added.

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