I don't agree with your premise that Dems were shocked by Trump's win. I, and many of my Democratic friends (and I live in DC and worked for a dozen years in politics) never thought she had much of a chance, and the polls never had her rising up high enough to overcome the Electoral College disadvantage. Only a handful of my Polyannish f…
I don't agree with your premise that Dems were shocked by Trump's win. I, and many of my Democratic friends (and I live in DC and worked for a dozen years in politics) never thought she had much of a chance, and the polls never had her rising up high enough to overcome the Electoral College disadvantage. Only a handful of my Polyannish friends were surprised by the outcome, and none of us were in shock.
One of the main reasons for my doubts was that this country doesn't like dynasties and one-party rule, and a Harris win would have put a Democrat in the White House for four of the past five cycles. So it's hard to run as a change agent when you have that legacy around your neck. And yet, Harris still came within a whisker of winning-- if less than 200,000 votes shift in a couple of swing states, she wins. So making any overarching conclusions about why Dems lost should come with a whole lot of caveats and cautions. We just don't know (yet) why so many swing state voters who came out for Biden in 2020 decided it was better to stay home and allow Trump to get elected than to show up and vote for Harris. And we may never know (if biases are at play, who is going to admit that to a pollster?).
I don't agree with your premise that Dems were shocked by Trump's win. I, and many of my Democratic friends (and I live in DC and worked for a dozen years in politics) never thought she had much of a chance, and the polls never had her rising up high enough to overcome the Electoral College disadvantage. Only a handful of my Polyannish friends were surprised by the outcome, and none of us were in shock.
One of the main reasons for my doubts was that this country doesn't like dynasties and one-party rule, and a Harris win would have put a Democrat in the White House for four of the past five cycles. So it's hard to run as a change agent when you have that legacy around your neck. And yet, Harris still came within a whisker of winning-- if less than 200,000 votes shift in a couple of swing states, she wins. So making any overarching conclusions about why Dems lost should come with a whole lot of caveats and cautions. We just don't know (yet) why so many swing state voters who came out for Biden in 2020 decided it was better to stay home and allow Trump to get elected than to show up and vote for Harris. And we may never know (if biases are at play, who is going to admit that to a pollster?).