Sports journalist and podcast host Stephen A. Smith contended Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election due to her party and campaign pushing away centrist voters, allowing the Republican Party to win these voters over.
Harris’s loss in the election was solidified when she conceded the election to President-elect Donald Trump, who surpassed the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency. When Smith was asked what prompted more voters to support Trump over Harris, he assessed that many people viewed the Democratic Party as being “a prisoner to the extreme Left.”
“Well, guess what? Most of America doesn’t operate on the fringes,” Smith stated on ABC’s The View. “Whether you’re left or you’re right, you’re relatively centrist. You believe in compromise, negotiation, working with one another. Nobody gets to get everything they want. The problem is those on the fringes continuously push for you to get everything you want. They’re not about getting things done; they’re about getting their way. And if they’re not going to get their way, they’re about complaining and griping about it, because they understand that when you are operating based off of grievance, that’s usually what provokes you to get to the polls.”
Smith further explained that the Democratic Party catering to the fringes of its party would have driven voters to support it, though the inverse happened, and Republicans ended up capitalizing on its opposing party’s tactic.
The View co-host Sunny Hostin then asked Smith if he believes the Republican Party is “an extreme fringe party,” to which he said no and that he thinks the party is operating in a manner “against those they believe are extreme on the left.” Smith, who identifies as “a fiscal conservative and a social liberal,” cited how some Democrats were in support of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, and that most voters “don’t think like that.”
Prior to his assessment, Smith stated he saw the outcome of the election “coming from a mile away,” arguing the Democratic Party’s first mistake was initially keeping President Joe Biden as its candidate. Smith, who stated six months before the first presidential debate that Biden should not seek reelection, noted how Biden went back on his word of only being a single-term president, suggesting the president decided to seek reelection after the Democratic Party performed better than expected in the 2022 midterm elections.
Biden announced in mid-July that he was dropping his reelection bid, less than a month after the first 2024 presidential debate. Once Harris entered the race, Smith contended that Trump utilized “fear” to convince voters that the vice president was absent from interviews, and that “people bought in” to Trump’s arguments.
Smith was also asked if he had any ambitions for political office, to which his initial answer was “hell no,” but later added that he would “definitely consider it” if he was told he had a legitimate chance to win. He added that should he run, he would run as an independent due to disliking both the Republican and Democratic parties and that he would not be “bought and paid for.”
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Following Election Day, Harris contacted Trump to concede the election, telling her supporters, “We must accept the results of this election.” In winning the election, Trump will become the 47th president of the United States, joining former President Grover Cleveland as the only two presidents to win two non-consecutive presidential elections.
Ahead of the election, Trump appeared on podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience to reach out to younger voters, with Smith suggesting Harris made “a huge mistake” not appearing on the same podcast. Joe Rogan explained last week that he had tried to set up an interview with the vice president, but was unable to agree to the prerequisites set by her team.
