Prof. Anup Kumar
Professor of Communication in the School of Communication, College of Public Affairs and Education, Cleveland State University. His teaching and research on the intersection of media and politics.
Email: A.KUMAR64@csuohio.edu
U.S. Election 2024
36. The tilted playing field, and a bygone conclusion (Dr David Karpf)
37. Looking forwards and looking back: Competing visions of America in the 2024 presidential campaign (Prof John Rennie Short)
38. Brat went splat: Or the emotional sticky brand won again (Prof Ken Cosgrove)
39. Election 2024: Does money matter anymore? (Prof Cayce Myers)
40. Advertising trends in the 2024 presidential race (Prof Travis N. Ridout, Prof Michael M. Franz, Prof Erika Franklin Fowler)
41. Who won the ground wars? Trump and Harris field office strategies in 2024 (Sean Whyard, Dr Joshua P. Darr)
42. Kamala Harris: Idealisation and persecution (Dr Amy Tatum)
43. Kamala Harris campaign failed to keep Democratic social coalition together (Prof Anup Kumar)
44. Revisiting Indian-American identity in the 2024 U.S. presidential election (Dr Madhavi Reddi)
45. Harris missed an opportunity to sway swing voters by not morally reframing her message (Prof John H. Parmelee)
46. In pursuit of the true populist at the dawn of America’s golden age (Dr Carl Senior)
47. Language and the floor in the 2024 Harris vs Trump televised presidential debate (Dr Sylvia Shaw)
48. Nullifying the noise of a racialized claim: Nonverbal communication and the 2024 Harris-Trump debate (Prof Erik P. Bucy)
49. A pseudo-scientific revolution? The puzzling relationship between science deference and denial (Dr Matt Motta)
50. Amidst recent lows for women congressional candidates, women at the state level thrive (Dr Jordan Butcher)
There was a consensus among party elites that Harris was the best suited to replace Biden in the contest with a resurgent former President Donald Trump. The assumption was that sidestepping Harris with any other candidate would not have gone down well with the base of the party. Harris’ loss to former president Donald Trump seemed to be a remote possibility to her campaign.
But on November 6th the world woke up to a second Trump presidency. How did this happen? It has been argued the 2024 presidential contest was always going to be difficult for any Democrat with more than two-thirds of Americans saying that the country was on the wrong track. Trump became the working class and anti-war candidate in 2024, and on the economy he had a record that could not be ignored despite all the sophistry from his opponents.
That said, what has been stunning is that for the first time since 2001 a Republican has not only won the electoral college but also the popular vote, and majorities in the Senate and the House. Trump got more votes compared to 2020 in almost all but a few states. Even in deep blue states Trump got gained by +3 to +11 in New York. This must be seen as a landslide.
How does one make sense of such a clear verdict for a candidate who clearly has numerous character flaws? All the indications from the exit polls suggest a significant realignment in the social base of the two parties. This must be seen as voters’ signaling approval/rejection of the policy preferences of the two parties and campaign platforms of the candidates.
All elections are won or lost depending on how campaigns articulate a series of issues in minds of voters to bring together a winning social coalition. Historically the Democratic base comprised of racial minorities, women, LGBTQ+, and the working class. The base of the party was aligned to progressive agendas on economics and culture. Whereas the Republican base comprised of White men, business owners, upper-middle-class professionals, and evangelicals aligned with tax cuts and cultural issues such as restrictions on abortion rights.
The expectation was that Harris would succeed in building a larger social coalition with the likelihood of electing the first Black woman president. But in 2024, the Trump-led Republican party has become more a working-class party that attracts working men cutting across social differences in race and ethnicity including Latinos and Blacks. The shift had started in 2016 when Trump took over the Republican party in an insurgent campaign. Democrats were leery to acknowledge that Trump-led Republicans have cut into the traditional Democratic base and make the necessary course correction on issues like the economy, immigration, and interventionist wars. But the Harris campaign chose go tactical by cutting their losses among Black and Latino men while increasing the turnout in their favor among women. They even resorted to scolding these groups for ignoring serious flaws in Trump’s character and likely furthering misogynism.
It was expected her position on reproductive rights would help save the blue wall in battleground states. Just a few days before the voting day a poll dropped that appeared to back the claim that women may likely help Harris win despite the social realignment in the base of the two parties. Trump’s campaign succeeded in countering the reproductive rights issue with its message of protecting women from criminals among immigrants and transgender men in bathrooms. Trump got more women, especially among Latinos, votes compared to 2020.
Harris failed to counter Trump’s forging of a new social coalition. Trump’s attacks calling Harris a “California liberal” forced her to disavow past left-leaning policy positions on some crucial issues such as the economy and immigration and moving to the center, thus vacating the left space.
There was an opportunity for Harris to reset the campaign in her image. Harris tried to reinvent herself as a centrist politician largely as a response to the Republican line of attack. However, in the process, Harris lost the authenticity that she had displayed in her performance on the Senate committees that propelled her into the national limelight as a strong woman leader.
The problem was that it was easier to change the sound bites and campaign narrative but tough to change the authentic identity of Vice President Harris. When Harris said in interviews that her policy positions had changed but her values were the same, it only played into the inauthenticity problem.
Does this mean that Trump has changed the Republican party to a more working-class and open to minorities for the good? This depends on how social coalitions were forged. Was the new coalition entirely based on shared policy preferences? In some cases, coalitions come together because of shared antagonism towards some groups as the other, especially migrants coming across the southern border. We see this in ethno-nationalist-populist movements across many democracies. Scholars will have to dig deeper into the increased support of Blacks and Latino for Trump’s Republican party to see if this is a one-off case or if we are witnessing a realignment in the social base of the two parties.