Dr Demetris Tillyris delves in to the US Presidential election result with a warning for the Democratic Party.

The US Presidential election carried with it a sense of déjà vu. Like 2016, by the next day of the election, Donald Trump had secured the three Rustbelt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – states integral to the Democratic pathway to electoral success. The 45^th President of the United States, had been re-elected as the country’s 47^th President, by winning not just the Electoral College but also the popular vote – the first Republican candidate to achieve this in 20 years. One of the most impressive comebacks in political history was complete.

The parallels with 2016 do not stop at the way in which election night unfolded; they also extend to the run up to the election. Though careful to avoid repeating the pitfalls of the unfounded exuberance experienced in 2016, and despite most polls suggesting that the election was too close to call, commentators, and Democratic Party members were ‘cautiously optimistic’ that the race was turning in Kamala Harris’s favour.

It appeared that Harris had fought a good campaign, and the message that Trump was a fascist who will drag America back to its darker past via the implementation of racist and misogynistic policies, seemed to register with voters. Surely, it was thought, despite Trump’s appeal to young men, if women and ethnic minorities voted in large numbers, especially in urban areas, the Democrats would find themselves in office for another four years. And so, on the eve of the election, like 2016, while Trump campaigned in Pennsylvania’s more rural areas, the Democrats made one final push in Philadelphia, surrounded by celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga.

But the nature of such campaign events was not just a bad omen; rather, it suggested that the lessons from 2016 were not digested. As Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s former Communications Director and supporter of Harris, noted, ‘star-studded concerts don’t play well with non-elites’. Instead they speak of a certain kind of liberal, metropolitan moralism, and exude an aura of pretentious snobbery, which reinforces the perception that the Democratic Party constitutes a gathering of the affluent. Individuals detached from political reality, compelled to lecture ordinary folk on what to think, what to say, and how to vote.

The reasons for the Democratic Party’s failure are numerous. For instance, the difficulties faced by incumbent governments; the timing of the decision to replace Joe Biden; the question of whether Kamala Harris was the right candidate; Trump’s communication style and his effective political weaponisation of X, and of podcasts. And, there is little doubt that a considerable portion of Trump’s base espouses, at the very least, regressive views. But, suggesting outright that the election was lost because Trump supporters as such are sexist and racist, would constitute an embodiment of the moralism that was, in part, responsible for the loss in the first place.

Unlike 2016, the outcome of this election was not just, what Van Jones termed, a ‘whitelash’ . For all his divisiveness, Trump put together ‘the most diverse Republican presidential coalition in history.’ According to exit polls, Trump’s numbers among Latino voters improved from 28% in 2016 to 46% in 2024; his national share of Black voters also increased, while Harris’s share of Black voters was down by 10% from the last election; and, whereas Harris’s support from women fell by 5% compared to the last election, Trump picked up a larger proportion of voters under 30 than any Republican presidential candidate since 2008.  

An acute manifestation of the Democratic Party’s liberal moralism was its failure to appreciate the plight of ‘paycheck-to-paycheck voters’  – a voting bloc that transcended age, race, and gender. Such a detachment from the economic struggles facing the electorate, was evident in the Party’s reluctance to offer a coherent narrative about the economy, even though the economy as one of the most pressing issues in this election. Rather, than acknowledging and addressing the cost-of-living crisis experienced during Biden’s presidency, the Democratic Party found solace in more abstract indicators of economic performance, such as GDP and CPI, which pointed towards an improved economic picture – a mere luxury afforded by the affluent, not by those struggling to make ends meet. And, rather than engaging directly with the ‘working class’, the Democratic Party framed its campaign message around the notion of ‘middle class opportunity’.

In a scathing post-election critique of the Democratic Party’s campaign, Bernie Sanders noted that ‘It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them … First, it was the white working class …, now it is Latino and Black workers as well’.  Sanders’s point is important: it suggests that the Democrats sought for the maintenance of the status quo, when most voters craved for change.

The defeat of the Democratic Party in the US Presidential elections will prompt considerable finger pointing. But it should also prompt a lot of soul searching. It appears that the Democrats cannot change the voters. If they have any serious political aspirations, they will have to change themselves. 

Dr Demetris Tillyris is a Reader in Politics and International Relations.