Current Events > Kamala campaign ads are even worse in hindsight

(+) Yeah! (+)

The problem was that she ran away from economic populism in favor of courting celebrities and republicans

The problem was that she ran away from economic populism in favor of courting celebrities and republicans

I still get emails from the Harris/Walz campaign asking for money lol

I think the fact that it was actually a pretty good (not brilliant, but still pretty good) campaign focused on policy and actually willing to fight dirty against republicans at the start is what gave people hope, but indeed there was a very noticeable and very rapid decline in quality almost immediately after the harris-trump debate.

My theory is that Pelosi had a private meeting with Harris where Pelosi would have been like "whoa easy there tiger, slow down, at this rate you might actually win this election, and we can't be having that. We're still reeling from our accidental win in 2020, there's no way our party can handle responsibility for another 4 years!" followed by demands to transform the campaign into a bland copy of Hillary's failed 2016 campaign.

More like, "I know these are ideas that the voters like, but the DONORS hate them, so..."

Imagine a middle-class or poor worker donating whatever money they had for a cause only to know that it was spent on millionaire celebrities, the group that keeps play pretending they give a shit about you, while also spending for more ads to ask more money of the same middle-class and poor workers.

And all of that to a defeat. This is almost a wealth transfer lol.

Now even Trump is clowning on them saying that he will help for this difficult period, since he manages a victory for spending far less.

Joe Rogan podcast was free.

Harris did best with those making $200,000 or more and had twice as many billionaire backers as well as a lot more PACs spending for her. I don't think working class people were banking her campaign much (they certainly weren't voting for it).

From what I heard, those who donated her still gets ads to this day.

If that is the case, DNC managed to lose the working class sympathy to the GOP.

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Imagine a middle-class or poor worker donating whatever money they had for a cause only to know that it was spent on millionaire celebrities, the group that keeps play pretending they give a shit about you, while also spending for more ads to ask more money of the same middle-class and poor workers.

And all of that to a defeat. This is almost a wealth transfer lol.

Now even Trump is clowning on them saying that he will help for this difficult period, since he manages a victory for spending far less.

Joe Rogan podcast was free.

I see then. I retract my comment.

The problem was that she ran away from economic populism in favor of courting celebrities and republicans

It just goes to show no amount of advertising will make a difference if the customer already knows the product is inferior. Advertising reinforces brand value, it doesn't create trust. Trust is built through years of experience with the customer. In this case, everybody has had four years of experience with her and whatever she advertises herself as is mostly meaningless. We already know what she's like. No amount of money or celebrity endorsements can change that perception.

And yet, they voted for the guy whose 4 years were 1000 worse and has no policies except to give more money to his billionaire buddies.

The problem was that she ran away from economic populism in favor of courting celebrities and republicans

I honestly don't think she could have done anything differently to win the election.

This thinking is insane

Campaigning with Liz Cheney didn't cost her millions of votes. I'd be surprised if millions of people even know she did that. Not going on Joe Rogan didn't cost her millions or votes. The economy cost her millions of votes. People are miserable.

That literally isn't true

I don't know how you get a billion dollars and some change in funding and end up with nobody outside of "engaged voters" knowing what you're running on at all

Literally every exit poll is wrong then? Like all of them?

Literally every exit poll is wrong then? Like all of them?

Harris was unable to distance from Biden

If we just take a step back from the hyperbole for a bit and think about it, this shouldn't be surprising. Goldman Sachs CEO came out and said explicitly Harris winning would be better for the economy. A good economy helps everyone, but it helps rich people more. Rich people are more likely to be college educated and have more free time to read about politics. As such they know tariffs are bad for the economy and that other Trump policies will hurt them. That Trump policies will hurt the working class as bad or worse isn't the issue to them, they're self-interested, but the working class largely doesn't understand or has been sufficiently duped by the pro-Trump propaganda that they will vote against their own interests. The Dems are in a very awkward spot where they are the party of pro-business and strong economy in general, but have the historical and rhetorical support for the working class at their ideological heart (and absolutely do have more pro-working class policies than Trump).

Tmaster148 posted... It's funny how people are still complaining about the Cheney endorsement when exit polls showed that people felt she was "too liberal". It literally did not matter.

The fact that people were searching up what tariffs were after the election shows that this entire election was based on nothing other than vibes. Trump was able to get away avoiding doing debates so it meant he never had to explain his policy positions and harris didn't have a good opportunity to expand on hers.

Vibes are created out of an image though, and if people went on their to vote for Trump of all things, it might mean the image of DNC isn't good.

This is almost a wealth transfer lol.

The media basically helped paint Trump as a sane person and was extremely critical of everything Harris did. Regardless of what Harris did, you can't really beat the guy being propped up for free.

At some point this has to be addressed. It really feels like the media is complicit in getting him elected. I'm not going to say that it's all the media's fault, Harris's campaign was perfect, etc. But the media propping Trump up as if he wasn't a convicted felon sex offending grifter and that Harris had to be a completely perfect candidate in all aspects has consequences on perceptions.

Which makes me ask. Did the people that were in favor of voting Harass in that survey actually went in to vote?

At some point this has to be addressed. It really feels like the media is complicit in getting him elected. I'm not going to say that it's all the media's fault, Harris's campaign was perfect, etc. But the media propping Trump up as if he wasn't a convicted felon sex offending grifter and that Harris had to be a completely perfect candidate in all aspects has consequences on perceptions.

Also after Trump won, then all of sudden articles came out like "Here's why Tariffs will hurt the economy". Stuff that should have been mentioned before the election.

There is a notably uniform swing in competitive states against Harris. Turnout was still comparatively worse in urban areas than elsewhere, but it was up slightly rather than down drastically. Harris lost vote margin on average compared to Biden, but only about three points of margin rather than over seven in non-competitive states.

The simplest explanation of what makes swing states different from non-competitive states is that campaigns spent money in them but not in the non-competitive states. In areas where the Harris campaign focused both its spending and its volunteer outreach, Democrats did significantly better than elsewhere. These effects served to boost the number of voters going to the polls and improve Harris standing with those voters. Turnout and persuasion seem to have gone hand in hand, and shifts in both were more concentrated in urban areas.

If we want to look for reasons why the Harris campaign lost the election, we should look elsewhere than the messages with which they bombarded voters, via paid media and volunteer canvassing, in swing states in the final months of the election.