I figured this was as good a time as any to come clean about reasons Democrats are fretting the 2024 election results despite some quite positive signs for Kamala Harris, so I wrote them up at New York:
One of the most enduring of recent political trends is a sharp partisan divergence in confidence about each party’s electoral future. Democrats are forever “fretting” or even “bed-wetting;” they are in “disarray” and pointing fingers at each other over disasters yet to come. Republicans, reflecting the incessant bravado of their three-time presidential nominee, tend to project total, overwhelming victory in every election, future and sometimes even past. When you say, as Donald Trump often does, that “the only way we lose is if they cheat,” you are expressing the belief that you never ever actually lose.
The contrast between the fretting donkey and the trumpeting elephant is sometimes interpreted as a matter of character. Dating back to the early days of the progressive blogosphere, many activists have claimed that Democrats (particularly centrists) simply lack “spine,” or the remorseless willingness put aside doubts or any other compunctions in order to fight for victory in contests large and small. In this Nietzschean view of politics, as determined by sheer will-to-power (rather than the quality of ideas or the impact of real-world conditions), Democrats are forever bringing a knife to a gun fight or a gun to a nuclear war.
Those of us who are offended by this anti-intellectual view of political competition, much less its implicit suggestion that Democrats become as vicious and demagogic as the opposition often is, have an obligation to offer an alternative explanation for this asymmetric warfare of partisan self-confidence. I won’t offer a general theory dating back to past elections, but in 2024, the most important reasons for inordinate Democratic fear are past painful experience and a disproportionate understanding of the stakes of this election.
It’s very safe to say very few Democrats expected Hillary Clinton to lose to Donald Trump in 2016, or that Joe Biden would come so close to losing to Donald Trump in 2020. No lead in the polls looks safe because in previous elections involving Trump, they weren’t.
To be clear, the national polls weren’t far off in 2016; the problem was that sparse public polling of key states didn’t alert Democrats to the possibility Trump might pull an Electoral College inside straight by winning three states that hadn’t gone Republican in many years (since 1984 in Wisconsin, and since 1988 in Michigan and Pennsylvania). 2020 was just a bad year for pollsters. In both cases, it was Trump who benefitted from polling errors. So of course Democrats don’t view any polling lead as safe. Yes, the pollsters claim they’ve compensated for the problems that affect their accuracy in 2016 and 2020, and it’s even possible they over-compensated, meaning that Harris could do better than expected. But the painful memories remain fresh.
If you believe the maximum Trump ‘24 message about Kamala Harris’s intentions as president, it’s a scary prospect: she’s a Marxist (or Communist) who wants to replace white American citizens with the scum of the earth, which her administration is eagerly inviting across open borders with government benefits to illegally vote Democratic. It’s true that polls show a hard kernel — perhaps close to half — of self-identified Republicans believe some version of the Great Replacement Theory that has migrated from the right-wing fringes to the heart of the Trump campaign’s messaging, and that’s terrifying since there’s no evidence whatsoever for it. But best we can tell, the Trump voting base is a more-or-less equally divided coalition of people who actually believe some if not all of what their candidate says about the consequences of defeat, and people who just think Trump offers better economic and tougher immigration policies. While the election may be an existential crisis for Trump himself, since his own personal liberty could depend on the outcome, there’s not much evidence that all-or-nothing attitude is shared beyond the MAGA core of his coalition.
By contrast, Democrats don’t have to exercise a lurid sense of imagination to feel fear about Trump 2.0. They have Trump 1.0 as a precedent, with the added consideration that the disorganization and poor planning that curbed many of the 45th president’s authoritarian tendencies will almost certainly be reduced in 2025. Then there’s the escalation in his extremist rhetoric. In 2016 he promised a Muslim travel ban and a southern border wall. Now he’s talking about mass deportation program for undocumented immigrants and overt ideological vetting of legal immigrants. In 2016 he inveighed against the “deep state” and accused Democrats of actively working against the interests of the country. Now he’s pledging to carry out a virtual suspension of civil service protections and promising to unleash the machinery of law enforcement on his political enemies, including the press. As the furor over Project 2025 suggests, there’s a general sense that the scarier elements in Trump’s circle of advisors are planning to hit the ground running with radical changes in policies and personnel that can’t be reversed.
An important psychological factor feeding Democratic fears of a close election is the unavoidable fact that Trump has virtually promised to repeat or even surpass his 2020 effort to overturn the results if he loses. So anything other than a landslide victory for Harris will be fragile and potentially reversible. This is a deeply demoralizing prospect. It’s one thing to keep people focused on maximum engagement with politics through November 5. It’s another thing altogether to plan for a long frantic slog that won’t be completed until January 20.
Trump has been working hard to perfect the flaws in his 2020 post-election campaign that led to the failed January 6 insurrection, devoting a lot of resources to pre-election litigation and the compilation of post-election fraud allegations.
Though if you look hard you can find scattered examples of Democrats talking about denying a victorious Trump re-inauguration on January 20, none of that chatter is coming from the Democratic Party, the Harris-Walz campaign, or a critical mass of the many, many players who would be necessary to challenge an election defeat. Election denial in 2024 is strictly a Republican show.
As my colleague Jonathan Chait recently explained, the odds of Republicans winning control of the Senate in November are extremely high. That means that barring a political miracle, a President Harris would be constrained both legislatively and administratively, in terms of the vast number of executive-branch and judicial appointments the Senate has the power to confirm, reject, or simply ignore.
If Trump wins, however, he will have a better-than-even chance at a governing trifecta. This would not only open up the floodgates for extremist appointments aimed at remaking the federal government and adding to the Trumpification of the judiciary, but would unlock the budget reconciliation process whereby the trifecta party can make massive policy changes on up-or-down party-line votes without having to worry about a Senate filibuster.
Overall, Democrats have more reason to fear this election, and putting on some fake bravado and braying like MAGA folk won’t change the underlying reasons for that fear. The only thing that can is a second Trump defeat which sticks.
Yes, mobilization is KEY and it’s not too late for anyone to get involved. Here are easy ways to do SOMETHING, complete with links to get you started NOW. Please pass on to your friends, especially those in swing states, or who know people in swing states.
http://www.helpkerrywin.com/
Hey, how about the Libertarian factor? You gotta think that there are some Repubs that will vote Libertarian this year b/c they can’t stomach voting for a ‘liberal’ but they hate the Justice Department’s promotion of the Patriot Act.
In regards, to Nader, I’d be surprised if he gets half of what he got last time (approx. 2.7% of the vote). Look, the only people that will vote for Nader are the anarchist, hemp-advocate types that don’t vote Dem anyway. Even Chomsky is recommending that people vote Dem in swing states.
Nader is not a factor for the remaining UNDECIDEDS.
He will have minimal impact on the states in which he remains on the ballot, but I do not believe his total will have relevance this election.
Kerry is going to win big, so it won’t matter.
As *possible* evidence of my previous point about Fla, see today’s WP… there’s a story about how Dems are turning up in larger proportions than Repubs in early FLA voting so far… i.e., a county has 35% registered Dems, but Dems make up 40% of all early voters there…of course, that might not statistically mean anything…But at the least, it reflects energy, I would think…
eric…
…in the end, I really think Kerry will win Florida… Recall they projected that the minimum wage initiative would churn out a 5% turnout increase — people on the low end who come out to vote themselves a pay increase are going to be overwhelmingly Democrat…
Also, Nevada has a similar referendum on the ballot…My guess is that the Kerry people see some internal polling out there predicting a similar surge (like the one possible in Fla)… Having Kerry speak there last night to energize canvassers may push him over the edge…
Any comments?
Thanks!
eric…
The best thing the Democrats could ever do (in preparation of the 2008 election of course) would be to embrace Nader and follow his lead for reform. His specific analysis is invaluable and will provide the Democratic party with a road map for winning the 18-35 progressive block of young voters. This is the age group that will be most politically savvy, most informed (due to growing up with the Internet), and most difficult to attract to the Democratic circle with “Business As Usual”. The tactics of Clinton and the “run to the middle” methods will not work in 2008. Reform is on the horizon.
For some time, the site has taken note of the fact that Democrats have historically been better at GOTV efforts than Republicans, noting this as a reason to discount LV polls that show a seemingly disproportionate Bush lead.
That wasn’t the case in the 2002 midterms, however. Karl Rove took the lesson from Gore’s 2000 effort, and spent a lot of time and money on his “72 Hour Project,” which many credit with the R’s surprisingly sound victories.
This year’s efforts make ’02 look like chump change – the R’s have spent unprecedented millions in organizing their ground game, including both their standard voter suppression/intimidation efforts and the D’s standard phone banks and other GOTV efforts.
I’d be interested in hearing some thoughts about how this might effect the standard curve re: high voter turn out – why would things be the same as 2000 this time around?
There are now states with early voting, at which exit polls could be done. However, early voters may be atypical. At least, I have had described to me such data for one state, expected to go for Kerry, with Kerry where he was expected to be in the lead, Bush lagging, and largish (6% each) numbers for Badnarik and Cobb. As I said, early voters may be atypical.
I said (http://deep_blade.tripod.com/journal/index.blog?entry_id=233424) just this when Nader announced. Here in Maine, our state Democratic Party wasted countless hours and alienated thousands of Green voters (most of whom could be convinced to vote for Kerry with the right persuation) with an ill-conceived and ultimately failed attempt to deny Ralph Nader ballot access. Meanwhile, we can’t even get Kerry/Edwards lawn signs. Couldn’t some of that lawyer money have helped the ground campaign?
http://www.econ.umn.edu/~amoro/Research/presprobs.html#basic
Andrea Moro’s work from UMINN. She is calling it 51.4% probability of victory with a 6 EV margin towards Kerry for the final vote(Simulation study)
Basic work Bush 271.
MOBILIZE the troops! Her website has some really interesting visuals. It looks like bush is trending negative but we must keep up LTE’s to counter his prevarications.
Electoral Vote.com had 271 Bush 267 Kerry tonight. Bush is beatable!
The trendlines are running Kerry’s way but it is absolutely important that we sell our man to every undecided voter!
three of the four electoral vote predictors on 2004k.com were calling it for Kerry tonight. It is Kerry’s to lose! We need to help him put it away!
Kerry is not going to lose WI. Did you see the picture of the rally? I think the recent Strategic Vision polls (plus SUSA) has given the picture that WI is vulnerable. I don’t think this is going to happen. IA I could see Kerry losing. If it ends that way, Kerry wins with 2 out 3 big state strategy. No doubt about it, it’s going to be a rough fight in OH, FL, IA, and WI. I think PA is a lost cause for Bush. NH is going Kerry. Don’t even worry about NJ. NM is gonna be Kerry. NV, I’m not sure if Kerry’s time there is well spent. CO will probably go Bush. If this holds, Kerry wins!
I’ve spent a lot of time this year doing craft-registration of voters (craft = small number…17 this year…but maintaining contact and getting them to mobilized and to the polls and in many cases registering people themselves).
A lot of the population I deal with are natural Nader supporters, so I’m familiar with the demographic in this specific region.
Very few Nader supporters will vote Nader this time and will vote for Kerry. Reason: They believe Kerry is campaigning as what they view as a Democrat, while they didn’t vote for Gore Junior in 2000 because believed herwas campaigning as Kinder, Gentler Republican.
The Nader voters I meet now are more frequently not Nader supporters — they are “perfect voter” types who are conservative and generally vote Repub but will not vote for Bush Junior. And yes, there are some militant Nader supporters in the remainder, too.
But the Greenberg Fade effect will most probably happen, and especially in states perceived as close races.
The only problem with the current “Three State Theory” (whoever wins 2 out of 3 between OH, PA, FL wins the election) is that Bush is doing better in both WI and IA and that KE could win PA and OH, lose FL, IA, and WI, and lose the election. That may be why Kerry is campaigning in NV right now.
Some other potential areas for stumping may be NC, VA and WV. At least make Bush defend these.