The election was ultimately less close than the majority of polls predicted. Trump largely won the electoral college and even won the popular vote, which no Republican had won since 1992, except George W. Bush in 2004. That he did it despite his baggage and an objectively execrable campaign shows to how profound is the rejection of what Kamala Harris' campaign embodied. However, because Harris had brought the entire establishment into her campaign, it was a global rejection of the centrist consensus that had just occurred. The same rejection that is spreading throughout the world, including of course in France.
Partly, of course, there is the question of gender, as expected: men prefer Trump to Harris, 54% to 44%, and women prefer Harris to Trump… 54% to 44%. But Harris did not make progress among women compared to 2020. There was not this great movement of women against Trump to counterbalance another development in the campaign: a shift of Latinos towards Donald Trump.
According to exit polls, Harris received only 52 percent of the Latino vote, a slim majority, continuing a decades-old negative trend. Obama received 70% of the Latino vote in 2012, Clinton 66% in 2016, and Biden 61% in 2020. For the first time, a majority of Latino men voted for a Republican candidate.
Democratic leaders are still wondering why they now have a problem with the Latino vote. Perhaps a simple way to interpret it is to listen to what voters are saying: it was their dissatisfaction with the economy that motivated their vote. The trajectory among Latinos since 2012, the massive vote for Trump among voters without a college degree, the rural vote, as well as the Democrats' progress among college-educated and older voters, ultimately all point in the same direction.
Democrats are frustrated with this perception, when the economy is objectively doing quite well and Trump's economic plan makes little sense. But the evil is old. The party has long since abandoned the concerns of the working classes, and if real wages have finally increased under Biden, the median real wage remains barely above the level of… 1972. In the long term, there is reason to be dissatisfied with the country's economic performance, at least if you are not part of the richest 10%.
By campaigning with the traditional right, Harris signaled that she would continue to embody a center without major economic ambitions, the continuation of a status quo that may be the voice of reason but no longer satisfies many people. The lesson for France is that it is a strategy which will undoubtedly no longer slow down the far right. The responsibility remains for the left to unite broadly and propose a program that can both inspire dreams and be implemented.
The political post Listen later
Lecture listen 3 min
