How Democrats lost; good summary from USA Today (of all places)

As with all USA Today features, it's a quick read. Below the link I've pulled out some of the lowlights – if you're a Democrat. Not mentioned below but my opinion – she didn't help herself with her VP pick. And – see below – she under-performed Biden with women.

WASHINGTON – When Kamala Harris appeared on ABC’s "The View" last month, it was supposed to be a friendly forum to introduce herself to Americans unfamiliar with her story. The Democratic presidential nominee instead struggled to explain what she would do differently than President Joe Biden. “Not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris, the incumbent vice president, told the hosts.

Following President-elect Donald Trump’s lopsided election victory over Harris, that television moment underscored a fatal flaw of Harris’ campaign that doomed her election bid – an inability to separate herself from an unpopular president whose approval ratings have hovered around 40% for most of his four years in the White House.

David Axelrod, former longtime adviser to Barack Obama, called the exchange − which became a Trump ad − “disastrous” for Harris as he recapped the election outcome on CNN early Wednesday morning. “There’s no doubt about it. The question is: What motivated it?”

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Harris underperformed with voters of color − particularly Latino voters − but also Black voters in urban centers such as Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee. Harris carried Black voters 86%-12% and Latino voters 53%-45%, according to CNN exit polls. But in the 2020 election, Biden won Black voters by a wider 92%-8% margin over Trump and Latinos 65%-32%.

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In the final weeks of the campaign, Harris escalated her rhetoric, calling the former president a fascist, warning that he is "unhinged and unstable," and highlighting the assessment of Trump's former White House chief of staff, John Kelly, who alleged Trump made past admiring statements about Adolf Hitler.

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“Kamala Harris lost this election when she pivoted to focus almost exclusively on attacking Donald Trump,” veteran pollster Frank Luntz said on X, formerly Twitter. “Voters already know everything there is about Trump – but they still wanted to know more about Harris’ plans for the first hour, first day, first month and first year of her administration.

“It was a colossal failure for her campaign to shine the spotlight on Trump more than on Harris’ own ideas,” Luntz said.

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Harris, who campaigned aggressively on restoring abortion access, won female voters by a sizable 54%-44% margin, according to CNN exit polls, but it was a slimmer margin than Biden's 57%-42% performance with women in 2020. Trump won male voters over Harris by the same 54%-44% margin as Harris won women.

The abortion issue ended up not being the galvanizing force it was in 2022 when Democrats exceeded expectations in the midterms.

Harris' loss marks the second time in three election cycles that Democrats have fielded a female presidential candidate in hopes of making history − only to both times lose to Trump.