There Are No Permanent Defeats
What Democrats can and can’t learn from 2024.
IN 1994, REPUBLICANS WON a sweeping victory that cost Democrats control of the House and Senate for the first time in 42 years. Even the Democratic speaker of the House, Tom Foley, lost as Republicans nabbed an eye-popping 54 seats (along with eight in the Senate). Republicans and conservatives exulted in this historic and, it was widely assumed, permanent political realignment.
Two years later, Bill Clinton won re-election with 379 electoral college votes to Bob Dole’s 159.
A loss, however painful, is not the end of the world. Every election result is provisional. There are multiple examples in recent memory of the American electorate delivering victories to a party and then swiftly reversing course.
Following George W. Bush’s 2004 success (in which opposition to same sex marriage was thought to have played a big part in GOP turnout), Democrats fretted that they might need to change their approach to social issues if they ever hoped to return to power. Two years later, Republicans lost control of the House. and the Senate. Two years after that, in 2008, the country turned to Barack Obama, handing Democrats control of the presidency as well. In 2010, the GOP triumphed, gaining 63 seats in the House, yet in 2012, Obama won re-election comfortably.
This isn’t just a recent phenomenon: In 1964, Lyndon Johnson won 486 Electoral College votes to Barry Goldwater’s 52, amassing 61 percent of the popular vote. Four years later, Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey with 301 Electoral College votes to 191. In the following election, Nixon won a landslide 520 Electoral College votes to George McGovern’s 17 (not a typo). McGovern won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Two years later, Nixon resigned, and in 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected. And so it goes.
This is not to minimize the seriousness of the mistake voters have made this year, just to keep some perspective. There are many turns of the wheel.
The Democrats will do themselves some good if this loss causes them to reconsider their boutique views on immigration, public safety, trans athletes, and other matters. But the thumping rightward shift in the electorate between 2020 and 2024 suggests to me that this election really came down (mostly) to inflation, with a side of immigration, rather than an embrace of Trump or Trumpism.
Most voters decide based upon their own financial condition. This year, 68 percent of voters rated the economy as “not so good” or “poor.” Yes, the other economic indicators were great, but 75 percent said inflation had inflicted moderate or severe hardship on them. All of the stock market gains, employment, and economic growth in the world cannot compensate for that. Compared with Joe Biden in 2020, Kamala Harris lost ground with nearly every demographic—urban, suburban, rural, you name it. Even among women voters, Harris did worse than Biden, with the exceptions of urban women, senior women, and those with a college degree.
It’s impossible to gauge how big a part racism and sexism played in Harris’s performance—few will admit such motivations. Harris performed a bit worse with Hispanic women than Biden did. Was that closet sexism? Doubtful. Nor does it seem plausible that so many young women who voted for Biden switched to Trump out of misogyny. Fully 45 percent of the electorate said they were financially worse off today than four years ago, which is a greater percentage than any year since the 2008 Great Recession. Only 26 percent of voters were satisfied or enthusiastic about how things are going in the country, whereas 43 percent were dissatisfied and 29 percent were angry.
For all the attention paid to white voters’ affection for Trump, their approval of Trump has declined from 57 percent in 2020 to 49 percent in 2024. And while much is being made, justifiably, about the big swing toward Trump among Hispanics, he remains unpopular among them. Only 42 percent of Latinos have a favorable view of Trump.
This underscores the importance of people’s personal financial condition. They will hire a creep if they think he’ll improve their personal prospects. Most voters neither understand nor particularly care about the rule of law or foreign policy (beyond war and peace).
Much will change before the next election—and yes, there will be more elections. The winning party will nearly always over-interpret its mandate and go too far, prompting a backlash at the polls. The president’s party typically loses seats in off year elections, so expect a rebuke in 2026. (One of the most dangerous depredations of Trump 1.0 was undermining faith in elections and attempting to subvert the 2020 outcome, so Democrats must be prepared to fight tooth and nail over interference with any election going forward.)
Democrats cannot just wait for the election cycle to solve their problems. There are a number of lessons they should take to heart from this year’s results: 1) the abortion issue has likely run its course as a motivator in national elections (though it remains potent statewide); 2) Hispanic voters cannot be taken for granted as part of the Democratic coalition; 3) woke postures like taxpayer-funded sex change operations for incarcerated immigrants are toxic; and 4) big federal spending programs don’t deliver immediate political dividends.
Much has been said and written about matters 1 through 3, so let me address 4. Of all people, Joe Biden should have understood that passing big bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act would not be noticed by voters in time for 2024. He was vice president when the Affordable Care Act passed and witnessed that not only was Obama not rewarded for it, Democrats lost the House in 2010.
Only much later, after it had been fully implemented and people began to enjoy the benefits (and Republicans failed to come up with an alternative), did the program become popular. Both the IRA and the infrastructure bill, ironically, contain lavish spending for rural and Trump-friendly parts of the country that will begin to come online just in time for Trump to take credit for them. The legislation may or may not have been good policy, but it’s important for Democrats to recognize that passing big bills doesn’t translate into votes—at least not right away.
The Democratic party has suffered a setback, not a wipeout. The country remains closely divided. Democrats still hold nearly half the seats in the Senate and (depending on the races still outstanding) nearly half of the House. Twenty-three states have Democratic governors. Democratic office holders need to gird their loins for the avalanche of lies, scandals, outrages, and betrayals that a second Trump term is sure to deliver. They must prepare to educate voters about the consequences of Trump’s tariffs (which are taxes), deportations, tax cuts, vaccine misinformation, and whatever other insane policies emanate from MAGA Washington.
There’s a place for autopsies and wound licking, but it’s soon time to move forward.