Everything I Believed About The 2024 Election Has Changed
Let me explain…
It is my humble opinion that undertaking the role of being a political content creator (if you have any integrity), means you should be as careful as possible when sharing information about politics.
While making mistakes is inevitable, it should be a top priority to minimize them. Since I believe this, I’ve largely been sitting back and trying to take in as much information as possible, post Election Day. Have I made criticisms of the Harris campaign? Yes, but I’m of the mindset that this is still a time for gathering information.
With the Election finally coming to close (from an official counting perspective), I believe we can now start looking at the data to truly see what went wrong for the Democrats in this election cycle.
So when I sat down to start looking over the numbers, something caught my attention that I was definitely caught off-guard by. When I saw it, I felt the need to check the other states to see if it was an isolated case or not. After looking through the numbers from the 7 swing states, something became very clear to me…
For all of those who have made pronouncements about the 2024 election (including myself), we may have spoke too soon.
Kamala Harris did much better than we originally thought…and due to this new information, she will probably have the inside track on being the nominee again in 2028
Let me explain
Kamala Harris has a very strong case to return as the Democratic nominee in 2028. Let’s discuss why
First, I want to say definitively, that I’m not really fan of Harris’ policies or how she was running her campaign. Those frustrations came out time and time again on Instagram, Threads & YouTube. This is not a candidate who I wanted to lead the Democratic Party, but I believe when the time comes to start announcing in spring 2027, she might just have a mandate based on this…
After seeing the results on Election Day, most were quick to refer to this contest as a “blowout”, citing Trump’s sweep of the 7 swing states. After doing so, many more people made their pronouncements as to why Kamala Harris lost 6 states that Joe Biden had won 4 years prior.
Now when we first look at Arizona, the state Trump won by the widest margin, it’s a fair question to ask. As you can clearly see, Kamala Harris not only lost the state, but she also got less votes in the state than Biden did in 2020.
Not only did Harris underperform her predecessor, Trump outperformed his 2020 performance. Which shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise, given the shift in Republican voters moving out of California and into Arizona.
I want to quickly note that these maps can be found on CNN’s website & I find them incredibly valuable (but I am kinda a nerd about election data).
Now I expected to find a similar trend across the 7 swing states. Trump had not only won the Election, but also the popular vote. The first for a Republican candidate since 2004 when George W. Bush got re-elected.
However, that’s not what I found in Nevada
Now, given the country’s pivot to the right in this election, I was not surprised to once again see Donald Trump eclipse his 2020 total in Nevada, but what I was shocked to find, was to see that Kamala Harris had eclipsed Joe Biden’s vote total from 2020.
Now granted, it’s not by much. We’re only talking about 2,000 votes here, but seeing that definitely had me scratching my head.
So I wanted to see how the other states looked. So I went to check out North Carolina. A state that Trump won in 2020 & won by a larger margin this time
Again, we’re not talking about huge numbers here, but Harris did improve on Biden’s total by 30,000 votes.
Now North Carolina has seen an influx on Democratic leaning voters move to the state from northern liberal cities, but it was still surprising to see her improve on Biden’s total, given that she lost by a larger margin.
At this point, I had to take a look at the other 4, so I did. I went to look at Georgia next.
I’m starting to see a trend now.
We heard on Election Day that the Democrats were having “historic” turnout & apparently…they were. Kamala Harris bested Joe Biden’s total in the state by 75,000 votes.
Making Georgia the 3rd state in a row where the Vice President increased on Biden’s totals from 2020.
Looking at Wisconsin, we have the 4th state where Harris increased on Biden’s 2020 mark. This time by a total of 38,000 votes.
Now in Pennsylvania and Michigan, the stories were slightly different. While Harris did not out perform Biden’s 2020 numbers in either state, she did in fact do better than Trump did in either state in 2020.
So even though we saw Trump retake the White House, win the popular vote, increase his overall vote total from 2020, and move several reliable blue states to the right, there was a silver lining for Harris.
It looks like her campaign was actually effective…
If you’re wondering how come I come to that conclusion, given everything I just said, it’s important to know where the Harris campaign started from. Please watch this video below that was taken from the show - Pod Save America
Donald Trump was not only slated to sweep the 7 major swing states, but also take: Virginia, Minnesota, New Mexico, New Jersey, New Hampshire, & Maine. If you go and look at the final vote totals of those states, you can see that that did in fact almost happen.
So Kamala Harris entered a situation where the country was extremely dissatisfied with the current administration and managed to:
Distance herself from Biden (in the minds of millions of voters even though she didn’t actively do a whole lot in all actuality)
Close the gap in every swing state, making them each competitive
Sure up the safer blue states
Surpass Biden’s 2020 totals in 4 of the 7 swing states
All in a campaign that was done in 100 days
While her administration was funding an unpopular annihilation of an entire region (which mostly only her base cared about)
While also parading the endorsement of a family (Cheney’s) her base despises
Barely mentioning any policy positions her base was excited for
And let’s not forget the rampant racism and sexism she had to overcome
And this was all while Trump was seeing his highest favorability ever, following several indictments and an assassination attempt.
Given the terrible starting position & self-inflicted wounds, Harris still barely lost this election.
That’s going to be a strong point of contention, when we start talking about the next election cycle.
I want to be clear - I don’t want Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee again in 2028. I do not believe that her brand of politics are what we should want for the future of the Democratic Party. In many ways, her campaign was more regressive than the Biden campaign of 2020. The vision she was putting forward for the country, looked more like a ‘republican-lite’ administration, than a Democratic one.
So my analysis is just that - analysis.
The point of this post is not to project what I want, but rather to examine what is. To that end, I think it’s important to be honest.
Kamala Harris ran an effective campaign.
It feels undeniable to say that at this point. Just look at what she was up against, how many missteps were made, and how well she still performed given those circumstances. Time will tell who the next nominee of the Democratic Party will be, but I wouldn’t rule out her return.
Also, let’s put to bed the notion that Trump won in a “blowout” or now has a “mandate”. This man had EVERYTHING going for him & still barely beat a candidate that had (or created for herself) every disadvantage imaginable.
As the dust starts to settle, we’ll be able to more clearly see what happened around the country & why certain areas voted the way they did.
I want to see why New York shifted right. Why we saw the same in California, New Jersey, Illinois, damn near every blue state shifted to the right. There’s still more data to comb over & more stories will be told.
Let us resist the temptation of trying to finish this story now & rather continue with curiosity as the story continues to tell itself. Hopefully we’ll collectively find the answers, so we can better prepare ourselves for Trump’s 2028 successor.
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