As Trump finished strong in the 2024 election, Democrats across America are sat disappointed in their homes as Kamala Harris steps away from her campaigns and speeches in the wake of Trump’s inevitable victory. But what of the victory? Why is it that Donald Trump was able to take our country by storm while Harris, who had an undoubtedly strong chance at taking the presidential victory, didn’t make the cut? Well, the statistics, popularity, and timing all go into the answer. 

For one, Harris’ campaign had unfortunate timing due to Biden’s drop out from the campaign, leaving her to pick up the pieces and formulate a new campaign from where Biden left off. But what she did take from Biden’s campaign was the fact that she announced that she would continue Biden’s policies on the Gaza war, the very war that was dividing Americans and causing mass outbreaks of violence among the split sides of those who support Israel and those who support Palestine, not to mention the uprisings in Anti-semitism that those with Israeli heritage have been facing ever since the war’s worsening. Now already that seemed to be a bad start on her campaign seeing as many people were angry at Biden for his own inactivity in the war, but there’s also the topic on Biden’s financial plans. Now to refer back to our point on her timing, the more in depth reason of why this played such an important role in the Democratic loss was because Biden had waited so long to drop out of the race before. With such a late drop out, Harris had no time to create and hone compound arguments in order to successfully beat back the Republicans and obtain the votes she needed. And although she did her best in uniting the party together in the odd circumstances, she had no ability in the time she was given to build a new campaign from scratch and had no choice but to build onto Biden’s campaign. Another important factor to note about her campaign as well and how it in turn caused the Democrats to end up on the losing side was due to a category that most of what I’ve already said falls into, and that’s how she refused to separate herself from Biden as a whole. Biden’s unpopularity was a dragging factor on the Democrats and when Harris stepped in, rather than separating herself from Biden to go onto her own campaign and ideas, clung to Biden’s previous policies as well as adding her own bits and pieces here and there. In doing this, she didn’t get through to any persuadable voters. It was also in these ways that she refused to explain her abandonment of progressive positions on certain issues, which in turn opened a gateway for Trump and the Republicans to break through the Democrats and find their way into the winning position of the presidential election.