In response to the 2024 presidential election, several commentators have argued that Kamala Harris’ defeat was inevitable. Zack Beauchamp of Vox argued that it was not a coincidence every incumbent government that went up for reelection in 2024 — Bharatiya Janata Party in India, Tory Party in England, Renaissance in France, African National Congress in South Africa — lost a significant percentage of their voter share. Beauchamp argues that incumbency parties worldwide all experienced a decline in their voter share due to backlash stemming from the rise of post-pandemic inflation. Although he notes that some parties such as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP did not actually lose the election, Beauchamp argues that the political fallout of the post-pandemic inflation essentially erased the advantage enjoyed by incumbent presidential candidates. From Beauchamp’s perspective, the fact that inflation had risen under the Biden administration ensured that any Democratic presidential candidate in 2024 would face an uphill battle.
While Beauchamp is correct in emphasizing that Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss cannot be fully explained by her failure to appeal to any particular demographic group, her defeat should not be viewed as purely a backlash to inflation. Instead, Kamala Harris’ loss should be attributed to the failure of Democratic Party to craft a message to Americans voters across all demographic groups who were frustrated with the economy. Although Harris and Biden touted their success in reducing inflation and COVID-19 related unemployment, a February 2024 New York Times/Siena College poll reported that 74 percent of Americans viewed the economy as only “fair” or “generally poor.” Kamala Harris’ defeat lies in the fact that the Democratic Party leadership believed that the only way that they could win voters frustrated with the economy was by contrasting their successful policy with Trump’s ill-defined policies. By accepting this idea, Kamala Harris largely blunted her populist but well-received message that corporations price-gouging had exacerbated inflation. More importantly, Harris could have won greater support in the 2024 election by addressing the sources of voter frustration rather than assuming that voters would be placated by the Biden administration’s successful policy.
The Biden administration demonstrated why talking about successful policy would not placate Americans frustrated with the economy. As Democratic ads frequently mentioned, the Biden Administration invested billions of dollars into “blue wall” states through the Inflation Reduction Act, strengthened unionization efforts through the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, and drastically reduced prices for prescription drugs. But what happened? Generally speaking, none of Biden’s policies caused him to obtain greater support from the working class who, like 41% of Americans, were largely concerned with inflation. Several articles describe how construction workers at sites created by the Inflation Reduction Act frequently reported that they were leaning toward supporting Republicans or Trump even after acknowledging that the Biden administration was providing them with jobs. But here lies the crux of the issue: Biden administration programs were appreciated by many but were not viewed by these workers as a concrete reason to vote for him. They believed that a Trump presidency would not only address the problems of inflation head-on but would also keep the beneficial Biden programs intact.
When the Biden administration reduced inflation to under four percent in 2023, the public still believed that inflation was rising causing several writers to refer to it as a “vibescession” in late 2023. While Biden initially attacked corporations for price gouging in February 2024, he opted against implementing price controls for consumer goods. Similarly, Kamala Harris endorsed an anti-price gouging policy in August 2024 after becoming the Democratic nominee. Yet she, too, was recalcitrant to not mention it as often enough throughout the campaign, likely due to criticism from economists. In my opinion, this was an error. Through her avoidance of the populist position, Harris allowed the Republican Party to cast itself as the party that was most concerned about the plight of working-class Americans.
In her defense, Harris was in a relatively poor position having been catapulted into the race with less than 100 days before Election Day. Yet at every step of the way, Harris misread the mood of Americans by contrasting Trump’s pessimism through projecting optimism. You can’t counter a vibescession through a campaign run on “good vibes.” Moreover, Harris’ strategy of relying on vibes led to backlash that forced Harris to hastily release a set of economic proposals related to housing in September 2024. Harris’ problem was not relying on vibes but rather misreading America’s vibes. Her rhetoric emphasizing the success of the Biden administration ignored the fact that Americans rated the economy as poor while 74 percent of Americans reported feeling concerned about the price of food and consumer goods according to a September 2024 Gallup poll. Rather than crafting herself as a moderate candidate that could placate moderate Republicans, Harris should have presented herself as a liberal who was not afraid to embrace price controls and other populist economic positions avoided by the Biden administration. A firmly pro-price control stance would have forced Trump in a position where he was at risk of losing support from voters concerned about the economy.
By embracing price controls more aggressively, Harris’ campaign could have increased her support amongst working-class Americans. Although polls showed that most voters were not convinced that the policies of Trump or Harris would have been better for the economy, they reported that working-class voters regardless of party were more likely to trust Trump with the economy than they were with Harris. Moreover, backlash against price controls mainly centered around how such a proposal could turn off moderate Republicans who compared price controls to socialism. This approach failed to account for the fact that multiple Republican state governors had implemented price controls between 2021 and 2024 and as many as 37 states have legislation explicitly prohibiting price-gouging. Most American voters accepted the rationale that corporations had directly increased the prices of consumer goods and therefore it was necessary for a presidential candidate to directly address this problem. More importantly, this was a much more compelling narrative than any other explanation given by the Democrats for Americans’ suffering. Rather than focusing on price controls, however, the Harris campaign largely concentrated on other economic issues such as housing that were seen as less risky to economic conservatives. But in reality, eschewing populist positions at a time when most Americans were frustrated with the economy was always much more risky.
On the other hand, Harris’ position in the Biden administration may have prevented her from being able to gain ground with working-class voters through advocating for price controls. While most voters understand that the Vice President is relatively limited in their power, Harris would have to explain why the Biden administration had never implemented price controls on consumer goods. Overall, the most effective route would be for President Joe Biden to have implemented price controls to boost his popularity when running for reelection similar to how President Nixon implemented price controls in 1971 prior to his successful reelection in 1972. But while President Nixon won political support for implementing price controls, Harris would have to win political support by promising to implement price controls after winning the election while being part of the current presidential administration. Still, a populist message based on price controls could have seriously strengthened Kamala Harris’ performance in the 2024 election by undercutting Trump’s central message.
