A top Democratic polling firm reported Vice President Kamala Harris’s resounding loss to President-elect Donald Trump came down to an undue focus on “cultural issues” as well as her failure to address inflation and border policies.
Trump’s decisive victory on Tuesday, which secured the popular vote and flipped at least four battlegrounds red, stunned many in the Democratic Party.
Blueprint released a report on Friday seeking to explain the staggering red wave by outlining the top three reasons why voters rejected Harris. Here’s a look into the firm’s findings.
The economy
The top reason people gave for choosing Trump over Harris was because they resonated with his populist message on inflation and the economy.
Saying that inflation was “too high under the Biden-Harris Administration,” the issue came in highest for black voters at 27% while 25% of voters overall said it was the top reason why they didn’t support Harris.
Inflation soared to the highest level in decades during the summer of 2022, with high prices persisting into the 2024 election cycle.
The vice president struggled to campaign on the issue, as the Trump campaign pointed to her top-dog status in the White House to argue that she had failed to address inflation during her 3 1/2 years in the Biden administration.
When Harris tried to paint herself as the agent of change to voters disillusioned by the economy, Trump pounced.
“She just started by saying she’s going to do this, she’s going to do that, she’s going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn’t she done it?” he questioned during his presidential debate against Harris in September.
“They’ve had 3 1/2 years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it? She should leave right now, go down to that beautiful White House, go to the Capitol, get everyone together, and do the things you want to do. But you haven’t done it, and you won’t do it, because you believe in things that the American people don’t believe in,” he continued.
The border
Voters also cast their ballots for Trump because they agreed with his concerns about immigration policy.
Worries about high levels of illegal immigration proved to be the top issue for 23% of all voters, with the same percentage of people saying it was their primary concern in battleground states such as Pennsylvania.
Voters agreed with the statement “Too many immigrants illegally crossed the border under the Biden-Harris Administration,” their support for Trump’s tough stance on border policy coming after relaxed border policies under President Joe Biden allowed for a record number of illegal immigrants to come into the U.S.
Trump renewed his pledge to undertake massive deportation efforts on the campaign trail and painted Harris as a fraud when she unveiled newly tough immigration positions, such as support for building a border wall.
He particularly targeted her status as “border czar” to argue that she had failed to do her job to keep illegal immigrants from coming into the country.
“I ask, what about all the people that are pouring into our country and killing people? That she allowed to pour in. She was the border czar. Remember that. She was the border czar,” Trump said during the debate. “She doesn’t want to be called the border czar because she’s embarrassed by the border.”
‘GO TO D.C.’: At the ABC News Presidential Debate, Donald Trump challenged Kamala Harris to get President Biden “out of bed” and take action on border security. pic.twitter.com/1yTDD0QOpu
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) September 11, 2024
Weighing in on the top two concerns for voters, Blueprint reported, “This suggests that Harris was weighed down heavily by the Biden administration, particularly by inflation and their track record on immigration.”
The firm’s data come after a post-election Associated Press survey confirmed that inflation and immigration were top of mind for voters across the spectrum as they cast their ballots during the 2024 elections.
Transgender policy
Voters also expressed beliefs that Harris had abandoned working-class people in favor of progressive agenda items, touting dissatisfaction with her focus on transgender policy over issues that mattered to the middle class.
Across swing states, 25% of voters believed that Harris was out of touch, seeming more “focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.” In what appeared to be a decisive indictment against the Democratic Party, more swing state voters chose Trump over the issue than any other, including economy and inflation.
In years past, Harris has expressed support for providing transgender operations to prison inmates, including illegal immigrants. Though she didn’t make transgender issues a primary focus on the campaign trail, preferring instead to dwell on abortion access in an appeal to female voters, the Trump campaign seized the issue and turned it into a staggeringly successful ad campaign.
“Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you,” a narrator said in the ad that flooded the airwaves in the weeks before the election. A headline flashed across the screen as he spoke, stating that “Trump tax cuts benefited middle, working-class.”
The appeal to middle-class voters who felt abandoned by the Biden-Harris administration served to flip the race across every state 2.7 percentage points in Trump’s favor, per a New York Times report.
WHAT HAPPENS NOW THAT TRUMP IS PRESIDENT-ELECT
The Blueprint report mirrors observations Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who caucuses with Democrats, made following the election.
“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” he said in a post to X. “While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change.”
