Inflation was too high. Turnout was too low. President Biden stayed in the race too long. His summer polling deficit was too steep to overcome.
The excuses for Kamala Harris’s loss are piling up, but they mask a deeper, more devastating reality: Democratic Party leaders did not listen deeply to and earn the trust of young voters, who could have helped her prevail in Michigan and other swing states. As a pollster who focuses on the hopes and worries of these Americans, losing to Donald Trump — not once but twice — represents a profound failure. Ms. Harris’s campaign needed to shift about one percentage point of voters across Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to secure the presidency, but instead struggled in college towns like Ann Arbor, Mich., and other blue places. Think about that: Flipping just one in every hundred voters would have stopped the likelihood of mass deportations, tax cuts for the wealthy, rollbacks of L.G.B.T.Q. protections and the reversal of climate regulations.
This was an eminently winnable race. Ms. Harris’s campaign rollout, convention speech, and debate performance captured the imagination of many young Americans, offering a vision of leadership rooted in progress and aligned with their values. Yet in the critical weeks that followed, her campaign struggled to close the deal with members of Generation Z who saw Ms. Harris as more of the same presidency that they felt let down by. Some of us saw her poll numbers and trajectory this fall and warned about what was coming; we were dismissed as “bed wetters.” But can anyone really describe her vision and ideas that would have made a tangible, affirmative difference in the lives of young people, relieving their economic stress and advancing their desire for a just society, a peaceful world and a healthy planet? “Not being Trump” was never going to be enough.
Data from multiple sources warned against an overreliance on abortion messaging in the closing weeks, emphasizing that it was neither a silver bullet nor a magic wand. But these warnings went unheeded, leaving too many young people — women and men — feeling unheard and misunderstood. Vocal, explicit support for abortion rights seemed to be the way Ms. Harris wanted to differentiate herself from the more moderate tone of Mr. Biden and to rally women, including younger female voters. But many American voters knew in their hearts that she was unlikely to be able to restore Roe and they were voting chiefly on issues and goals that felt more immediate and urgent.
This failure is especially remarkable given that the Biden-Harris administration’s first years delivered significant youth-centered achievements — student debt relief, unprecedented climate investments and meaningful gun safety legislation. Yet these victories were difficult for many young people to see or feel in real time and Mr. Biden lacked the gifts of speechmaking and persuasion to talk about these accomplishments effectively in today’s fractured media landscape. Imagine if Mr. Biden or Ms. Harris had the dexterity and fluency to go on YouTube with Hasan Piker, or on Joe Rogan’s podcast, or other Gen Z destinations and make the case to young Americans about these accomplishments.
Instead, many young voters didn’t perceive the tangible impact of their 2020 vote for Mr. Biden, which not only eroded their faith in the Democratic Party but also deepened their cynicism about government and politics as a whole. This disillusionment left some of them more open to Mr. Trump’s messaging that the current government is ineffective and that he alone could respond decisively to their fears. It left others more open to Jill Stein’s candidacy or the choice of writing in the name of someone they trusted, rather than filling out their ballot for someone they didn’t.
The erosion of trust among young voters proved to be a critical blow. Mr. Biden’s 2020 coalition included record youth turnout and a decisive 60 percent of young voters nationally rejecting Mr. Trump. This time, the former president didn’t just chip away at the youth advantage — he slashed it in half across battleground states. The numbers tell the story: looking at CNN exit polls, Mr. Biden’s 24-point average margin among young voters in the seven battleground states collapsed to just 13 points under Ms. Harris, failing to hold 2020 margins among both young men and women.
The story from the last six presidential elections is simple: When Democrats capture 60 percent of the youth vote, like Mr. Biden did in 2020 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, they win the White House. Garnering just 54 percent, according to exit polls, Democrats didn’t just miss this target — they watched it wither like an untended garden. In Michigan, Ms. Harris tied Mr. Trump with 49 percent of the youth vote. The vote shift from blue to red in college towns like Ann Arbor is staggering; in some University of Michigan precincts, the vote shifted 20 points toward Mr. Trump in four years. The campaign fared only slightly better in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Ms. Harris earned 53 percent of voters under 30.
I’ve watched with growing concern as the Democratic Party has increasingly replaced the art of listening to and polling voters with an almost religious devotion to data analytics. This approach combines voter file data, consumer databases, short surveys, social media insights and information from canvassing and events to create detailed profiles and models of potential voters. While this can certainly aid in deciding where and how to spend campaign money and resources, it often results in outreach that feels to voters like inauthentic, overly tailored messaging that lacks genuine connection or depth.
Anyone sitting in focus groups with undecided voters saw the writing on the wall. The warnings were clear and consistent from spring through fall. Economic anxiety never wavered — Mr. Trump’s era felt more financially secure, while a Harris future felt uncertain. When young women finally made their choice in the campaign’s final weeks, many reluctantly chose their pocketbooks over reproductive rights.
While data analytics have their place, this near-blind faith in random control trials and modeling has created more than just an illusion of scientific precision — it has built an algorithmic fortress that isolates Democrats from the very voters they seek to represent. The irony is stark: a party full of voter data yet starved for true voter understanding and connection.
I think one of the most significant misreads is on abortion. Compelling data from multiple sources cautioned that economic concerns required equal attention. Many voters care about reproductive health, know the stakes and chose Mr. Trump anyway. Take Ohio, for instance: Last year, in a lower-turnout election, an abortion measure enshrining reproductive rights passed with 57 percent support. Just a year later, Mr. Trump carried the state with 55 percent, and now Ohio has a Senator-elect, Bernie Moreno, who “aspirationally” supports an abortion ban with scant exceptions.
Analytics should serve a campaign like radiology in a hospital — critical but supplementary. X-rays and lab results are essential, but no one would allow radiologists to run an entire hospital without doctors who engage with patients, understand their concerns and treat them holistically. Yet Democrats have done essentially that — allowing data scientists to replace human connection with numbers, mistaking metrics for meaning and forgetting the fundamental truth that politics is about people, not percentages.
At the same time, the campaign’s struggles with young voters went far beyond tactical failures. When young Americans voiced deep moral concerns about Gaza and the humanitarian crisis unfolding there, they received carefully calibrated statements rather than genuine engagement with their pain. I believe this issue contributed to lower enthusiasm and turnout in battleground states in 2024 compared to 2020.
When young people demanded a clear articulation of the differences between Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris — on climate, economic inequality, and health care — they got a website filled with incremental policy proposals. And when they expressed fears about their economic future, they received promises of tax credits and statistics about job growth rather than a deep understanding of their lived reality. This wasn’t just a series of analytics-driven messages missing their mark — this was a fundamental failure to speak to young Americans about the moral urgency of the issues that keep them up at night.
Simply showing up is half the battle in politics with young people — whether joining more podcasts or sitting for coffee with families in Dearborn. These aren’t just campaign stops; they’re signals of respect, of willingness to engage beyond comfortable spaces. Having seen Ms. Harris in truly unscripted moments with young people, I have no doubt that she would have excelled. The campaign missed too many of these moments. By modulating her message and not fully entering the spaces youth occupy, Ms. Harris was not able to be the Democratic disrupter that young Americans desperately sought.
The coming electoral landscape looks particularly challenging. The 2026 and 2028 Senate maps seem likely to favor Republicans, with Democrats defending vulnerable seats in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Arizona. Only a handful of Republican seats in competitive states will be up for grabs. The stakes transcend electoral politics — they cut to the heart of American democracy itself. While Ms. Harris fought valiantly for the 107 days of her campaign, the party’s systematic disconnection from its base’s most urgent moral and economic concerns cost them the election.
Each year brings a new cohort of voters into the electorate — politically engaged, passionate about change and increasingly skeptical of traditional political machinery. The path forward is challenging yet clear: Democrats must question everything. They must rebuild from the ground up, re-engaging with voters on the core issues that directly impact their lives. The era of excuse-making and black-box solutions has passed. The Democratic Party must embrace transformative, people-centered engagement or risk losing its party and the very future of American democracy.
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