03-06-2025
Should Republicans Have Won in a Landslide?
Could Kamala Harris have won if she had more time?
What if she had stayed focused on the economy over the final month?
Did Joe Biden's age cost Democrats the election?
I've read articles on all of these topics over the last few weeks, and they're all reasonable questions. It's natural to wonder whether any election could have gone differently, especially in a contest as close and consequential as this one.
But since the election, I've often asked myself a very different question, one that ought to be kept in mind as people re-litigate the race: Should Republicans have won the 2024 election by a much wider margin?
While the history books will rightfully dwell on whether Democrats could have forestalled another Trump presidency, the question of whether Mr. Trump cost conservatives a more decisive victory might be the more useful one to understand American politics today.
Voters wanted change, badly. They were repelled not just by Mr. Biden's faltering condition, but also by rising prices and perceived failures of Democratic governance on everything from immigration to energy. While it didn't yield a more decisive Republican victory, the backlash against pandemic-era restrictions, rising prices and 'woke' all help explain why a close election felt like a conservative 'vibe shift.'
The race was close for one reason: Donald J. Trump. He was an unpopular felon who had alienated millions of Americans with his comments and actions over nearly a decade. Obviously, President Trump possesses important political strengths, but his weaknesses plainly made a landslide victory more challenging. To the extent the election offered the Republicans an opportunity to win big, he was not the candidate to capitalize on it.
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