Hindsight may be 20-20 but when it comes to a U.S. election contested by one Mr. Donald Trump, it is a blur of far-fetched speculations. Perhaps it was Biden stepping down too late, or Kamala Harris being seen as an afterthought candidate who failed to connect with voters. Maybe she struggled to reach male voters or distinguish herself from Biden’s policies, or simply ran on the confidence that being ‘not-Trump’ would be enough to win. These critiques have some merit, but they overlook a far more compelling reason for Trump’s victory. While Harris ran on a platform that, at its core, championed reproductive rights for women—Trump’s was more convincing, and as age-old and timeless as ever. The economy.
In early 2024, the Financial Times ran a headline proclaiming, ‘It’s no longer the economy, stupid’ In light of last week’s election results, that sentiment hasn’t aged well. There is a reason why the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” is so popular in American politics, even today. Coined by Bill Clinton’s strategist James Carville in 1992, the phrase underscores a central reality of American politics—that economic issues would more often than not outweigh all others in shaping voter priorities as electoral outcomes. In 2024, Trump built a campaign around two core issues that directly influenced voter perceptions of the economy—inflation and immigration. Coincidentally, these were the two issues where Biden performed poorly, and Harris, by association, inherited the fallout from his policies.
Multiple surveys are now being cited that suggest that the perception of the American people on the economy remained weak. Despite steady GDP growth, Americans saw their value for money wiped out in recent years. People felt worse off. For lower-income groups, inflation sent food prices soaring, healthcare costs ballooned, and housing became increasingly unaffordable. This economic strain hit certain demographics hardest—young, working-class people and minorities—who were already feeling disenfranchised, especially as they faced soaring inflation at a time when they were trying to start families and achieve homeownership.
To the chagrin of Harris’ political strategists probably, not only have women voters cited the economy and household expenses as their main issue in nationwide surveys; but the electoral outcome suggests that more women voted for Biden in 2020 and Clinton in 2016 than Harris in 2024.
For the naysayers of this theory, there is another consideration that also comes from the Financial Times, an analysis conducted by data journalist, John Burn Murdoch. Looking at historical data of developed countries going into elections since the 1990s, Murdoch identified the year 2024 as a complete oddity. For the “first time in the history of democracy” as he put it, every governing party facing an election in a developed country in 2024 lost vote share, and the reason was the economy. The surge in inflation and lack of financial support in the aftermath of the pandemic across developed countries which coincided with a decline in real household incomes resulted in households taking the political future of their countries into their hands by going off kilter.
In another piece published earlier, Murdoch compiled millions of data points since 1600 and opined that the West had indeed shifted away from a culture of progress in recent decades, towards one of caution, worry, and risk-aversion.
Indeed, Trump’s campaign of fear-mongering and doomsday scenarios for Americans, paired with his ‘America first’ economic policy that capitalized on revulsion towards foreign goods and people, resonated with voters insurmountably more than any other messaging that Harris brought to the table, ultimately contributing to her downfall.
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