Photo by iStock / Getty Images Plus
I was shocked by the results of this election. Americans’ rejection of the Harris-Walz ticket broke with so many other signs pointing to a repudiation of Donald Trump and his Republican Party since 2016.
Until now, elections in the Trump era — the 2018 Blue Wave, the 2020 defeat of Trumpism, the historic 2022 midterms and almost all the special races in between — were defined by a strong pattern of Democratic victory.
That was reversed this month with Donald Trump’s decisive victory. And in Arizona, Democrats not only failed to flip two winnable congressional seats, but also lost ground in those races, the state legislature and numerous other local contests.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
This year, we had a staggeringly straightforward problem. It topped every poll asking voters what issues they consider important: the economy. When given the opportunity to be specific, voters tell us that price inflation has dramatically increased their cost of living. It’s been blaring at us for years and is widely considered a major reason why incumbent liberal parties in many other democracies also recently lost their mandates.
But the Democratic Party was lulled into a false sense of security on this issue. If inflation was such a deadly issue for Democrats, why wasn’t the Biden-Harris Administration punished for it in the midterms?
The answer lies, as with most political questions, with the electorate. The people who turn out for midterms are wealthier (in terms of salary and asset ownership), more educated, more willing to excuse high prices in the face of abstract economic signals that America’s long-run economic outlook is healthy, and, ultimately, more likely to share the social worldview pervading the Democratic Party.
If we had been introspective about the consequences of the party’s narrowing appeal to these high-propensity midterm voters, election night would’ve been no surprise.
But we probably still would have lost no matter who we put at the top of the ticket. The cumulative price inflation over the last four years and the effective reduction in take-home pay for Americans are substantial headwinds — the kinds that topple administrations no matter who tops the ticket.
The incumbent party and the Bidenomics that many were convinced sustained inflation had to be punished. If not for everything so off-putting about Trump, we probably would have lost each swing state by a dramatic margin.
The painful reality is that, so long as the Democratic nominee — whether anointed by leadership or victorious in a “blitz primary” for the support of a well-off electorate — applauded Bidenomics and stopped short of rejecting the White House’s economic philosophy, they would have merely signaled “more of the same” to voters.
The same goes for Arizona’s down-ballot candidates who could not distinguish themselves from the White House in the eyes of voters.
My now-obvious realization is that Democratic celebration in 2022 further alienated the less wealthy, less educated and more price-sensitive voters who turned out in 2024. We deserved the resultant backlash because we were complacent about our popularity among a privileged electorate that did not feel the same pinch that so many others have of late. We were oblivious to their immediate pain and told them, “Just give it time for wages to catch up, the economic outlook looks good.”
Meanwhile, the Child Tax Credit expired and millions of people (including hundreds of thousands in Arizona) lost their Medicaid coverage — not for lack of Democrats trying to save those benefits, but under a Democratic president, nonetheless.
Add to the fact that on the ballot was a guy who is uniquely good at naming and shaming problems and motivating people in an organic way to show up at the polls for him, and you have a predictable rout for the Democratic Party reminiscent of what we’ve seen around the world.
To be clear, there were other problems dogging Democrats this year. For example, it didn’t help that our position on the Israel-Palestine conflict (half on Israel’s side and half on Palestine’s) alienated many people. But that does not explain why we saw a rightward turn everywhere and across virtually every demographic group.
Similarly, Democrats probably lost some trust after what some viewed as the exposure of a grand conspiracy to cover up the president’s ailing health. And we know that racism and misogyny drove some voters to Donald Trump, as did narratives that the Democratic Party had moved from a reasonable center to the extreme left.
Meanwhile, systematic efforts in Republican-led states to suppress likely-Democratic voters — especially Black people — as well as hoax bomb threats to polling locations contributed to this result. Messaging around immigration that ceded ground to Trump’s xenophobia also certainly did not help the Harris-Walz ticket and Arizona’s down-ballot candidates running close to them on the issue.
But only the economy can explain what happened around America and the rest of the world. I don’t mean “the economy” as most readers of this article likely understand it (GDP growth, stock performance, labor statistics, etc.), but “the economy” as people who likely are not reading this experience it — the actual cost of living.
Household costs (particularly food and housing) and the proportion of Americans reporting that they live paycheck-to-paycheck increased dramatically since 2020. That baked the cake: The incumbent party and the Bidenomics that many were convinced sustained inflation had to be punished. If not for everything so off-putting about Trump, we probably would have lost each swing state by a dramatic margin.
Thankfully, this can be our low point.
Paradoxically — and with great privilege — I’m optimistic about Democratic performance in future elections because the next four years under a Trump-Vance administration look incredibly bleak.
Donald Trump will do what he did from 2017 to 2021: turn people off. He will remind people why they are disgusted by him. Murder of Palestinians and Ukrainians at the hands of Netanyahu and Putin will accelerate. The exercise of free speech will be met with more violent force. Women and minorities will continue to face systemic barriers to their success. America will again abandon its commitment to protecting those who cannot protect themselves, and Trump will dig the GOP further down the same grave it has dug for itself since he first became their nominee in 2016.
When Trump — a uniquely untouchable and unaccountable politician — is no longer on the ballot in 2026 and 2028, the GOP will suffer the consequences of its actions. While our high-propensity base will fuel Democratic majorities in Congress in the midterms, we must do more to win over those who don’t have the luxury to pay attention to off-year races if we want to take back the White House.
The Republican Party won this battle, but Arizonans must win the War on Hate — and we will if we recognize the real problems we face in earnest. Instead of chastising our neighbors for voting with their pocketbooks, we can start by offering them rapid relief today.
Long-term, this project requires us to recognize our own echo chambers by asking ourselves “Who isn’t voting for our candidates in the midterms, who will show up to vote in the general election, and what must we do to earn their support?” This necessarily entails an overhaul of the Democratic Party and the people waving its banner. We must ensure we understand the range of wealth, education, and experiences in our state and nation and offer a platform that addresses not just the root causes of their suffering, but also the pain itself in the immediate term.
It’s time to get to work.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.