Readers of my political columns on CommPRO know that I have been critical of how Vice President Kamala Harris conducted her campaign from the get-go.

Early on, I criticized her for choosing a little known governor from Minnesota as her running mate instead of choosing better known governors like Roy Cooper of North Carolina or Joshua Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Immediately after she chose Tim Walz, I wrote on this site that she made a near fatal mistake in choosing the Minnesota governor.

And also on October 17 I wrote: 

“Kamala Harris should also be scared, because given former President Donald Trump’s criminal record and constant lying; the vice president should be sailing to victory. But according to polls she isn’t. She is barely leading in the national polls, and is virtually tied with Mr. Trump in the swing states that will decide the winner.”

 “Also, recent news stories report that for the first time in many years more voters identify with the Republican Party than with the Democrats. That should put a scare in Ms. Harris.

“If I was advising her, I would tell her that she has to do two things, I wrote,” and do them fast, before Mr. Trump overtakes her. 1) Shake up her campaign staff and add someone who is not afraid to suggest playing Mr. Trump’s games, as unseemly as they are. If that means getting into the mud with the former president, so be it.  Losing politely is still losing, 2) Unleash an October surprise.”

Ms. Harris did not deliver even a mild October surprise. Instead she ran what I said on this website was a terrible campaign. More on this later.

I wrote that what she has to do was shake up the political world by announcing a bold October surprise and suggested appointing seven Republicans to the 15 cabinet positions, a decision that could 

revolutionize the political culture of our country for years, if not forever, and prove to voters that she is the candidate of change. The reason I suggested that was because it was evident to any open minded person that the country was trending Republican, and Ms. Harris was on the road to defeat, and doing that could stop the erosion of Democratic voters to the GOP. 

All during the truncated campaign left-leaning political TV pundits based their opinions on what they wanted to happen instead of facts. The right-leaning TV pundits did so too, but were more critical of the president-elect than their liberal brethren was of Ms. Harris.

A person need not be a member of Mensa to read the tea leaves about how the election would come out. Donald Trump is a twice impeached president and a convicted felon, who faced several other criminal charges. The fact that Ms. Harris lost the five point lead she had after immediately announcing her candidacy was an early tip off that she was in deep trouble. 

In my opinion, the reason that this election was a nail biter for so many months was because both presidential candidates were found wanting by voters: Mr. Trump because he is a convicted felon and habitual liar, whose inflammatory rhetoric has divided our country, and Ms Harris because she was nominated in what many people considers an unfair manner, not facing primary opponents and running the worst campaign that I can remember. And I go back a longtime. She ran as a traditional Democratic liberal when the country wanted change. (Mr. Trump was fortunate that President Biden handpicked Ms. Harris as his successor. If he had allowed the delegates to select a presidential candidate, it probably would have been Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan or Gov. Joshua Shapiro of Pennsylvania with, perhaps, Gov Roy Cooper of North Carolina as their running mate. Or maybe as the presidential candidate.)

I also believe that there were specific reasons why voters voted the way they did: President Biden misread how legal immigrants did not support illegals from crossing the border and took action only after it became evident that the situation was costing Democrats votes in the election. By the time he took corrective measures, it was too late to change minds. 

Also in order to stem the flow of Black men to Donald Trump’s side, Ms. Harris offered them enough financial advantages to fill the kitchen sink several times over, including forgivable loans to black business people, and creating other opportunities for Blacks to succeed at business.  Blacks were also upset at the Democrats for providing free housing for illegal immigrants, when many Black citizens struggle to pay rent and feed their families. (While I’m sure that analysis of Black men votes will reveal that the majority went to Ms. Harris, it only took a small drop-off to swing states to Mr. Trump.) 

Even though Ms. Harris’ plans to help Black men applied to all Americans, only a policy wonk would know it did because it was heavily promoted to appeal to Black voters. A better approach would have been to promote it as a policy for all working class Americans below an income level.

Ms. Harris was all over the proverbial political map, promising to give away the key to the gold at Fort Knox in order to win Black, Latino and white votes with far-left proposals, when recent elections showed that the U.S. is a center left or center right country. In addition, when asked questions, she responded with platitudes or kept telling an audience that wanted answers about how, when she was a little girl, she sat with her mother around a formica table, as if that was an unusual occurrence. She also couldn’t explain how she would govern differently from President Biden, (who did her no favor by giving her only several months to campaign.) 

Conversely, Mr. Trump stood to the talking points that he has been using since 2015 – the immigration policies, how they were taking away jobs from legal immigrants, inflation and tax cuts. Ms. Harris would have been better to stick to four talking points: abortion rights, health care, lowering the cost of living and the threat to democracy if Mr. Trump was elected.

Mr. Trump’s campaign was similar to an advertising campaign: Using the same message points over and over until it’s proven that consumers are tired of it. Ms. Harris changed her talking points too frequently to convince voters that she meant what she said.

Looking forward, it’s obvious that the Democratic Party’s message points and strategies have to change. They have to stop being Dr. Fix It to every pressure group’s problems and start doing what’s best for all Americans. It’s not only people with special needs that have problems. Most Americans do. It’s not only minorities that need financial policies to help them. Many non-minority Americans also need help. 

Democrats also have to stop criticizing Mr. Trump as a person and instead criticize his policies and say how they will do things differently if they win the 2026 and 2028 elections. They must provide specifics, not generalizations. But they should begin criticizing Vice President-elect JD Vance, who likely will be the GOP presidential candidate in 2028.

There’s a saying that you can’t teach an old horse new tricks. Will Mr. Trump change, or will he remain a population divider, instead of attempting to bring people together? Mr. Trump is an old warhorse. I suspect he’ll still believe in, “Do it my way or go to the highway.” 

A relative of mine said that the election of Mr. Trump proves that the U.S. is a racist country. Ridiculous to think that’s why he won. It doesn’t make sense if you study the election results. Sure there are racists, but to blame Ms. Harris’ defeat on racism is illogical. Were the considerable number of Blacks, Latinos and Asians who abandoned the Democrats and conceivably provided the margin of victory for Mr. Trump in close races racists against themselves? I think not. They voted for Mr. Trump because the Democratic Party policies have not helped them and hoped that Mr. Trump’s would. (Many said throughout the campaign that they were better off economically during the first Trump presidency.)

Another relative said he knew Ms. Harris was in trouble when a Latino employee of his said that he would vote for Mr. Trump. “It took me seven years to enter this country legally. No one should enter the country illegally”.

For the Democrats to become competitive in the near future, what they have to do beginning right now, is to figure out how to regain the blue color and rural vote in mid-America. It will take a while to win them back. But if they continue their big city coast election strategy they will become a minority party for generations, much like the Republicans were for many years beginning with the FDR presidency..(For too many election cycles, as I have written for years, the Democrats have mistakenly abandoned rural voters, depending upon voters from the big cities to provide enough votes to win. But as it did in the first Trump victory, it was the rural voters, along with the disenchanted minority and blue color voters, who abandoned Ms. Harris and Democratic Congressional candidates. 

A good start, in my opinion, would be for Democratic Party officials to follow the play book that elected a moderate liberal, Bill Clinton, twice, and dissociate themselves from the far-left elements of their party.

And above all, treat all Americans alike, instead of pandering to special interest groups and minorities. Policies should not be carved out to only help these groups. The help should apply to all Americans who need help. 

As a Harris voter with an open mind, I can understand why so many Americans in need of help feel excluded, instead of included, in Democratic Party programs. The party’s messaging is abysmal. Too often it only talks about helping special interest groups. It needs a broad spectrum message that appeals to all Americans.

During his first presidential campaign in 2016, Donald Trump began his pitch to woo Black voters by saying, “What the hell do you have to lose?” Apparently, the considerable number of Black, Latino and Asians who voted for him on Nov. 5, 2024 believed that they had nothing to lose by doing so.

During my political days, when I worked on campaigns ranging from local, to presidential ones, an old political hand told me that voters are interested in policies that will help them today, not sometime in the future (as President Biden’s policies will.) That’s good advice for all candidates. 

As I was putting the finishing touches to this essay, I heard a Democratic congressman say how proud he was of the Harris campaign. Being proud of losing is a surefire route to losing again.

For people in our business, the most important take-a-way from the presidential election wasn’t from what the candidates said or did. They are, 1) the best strategies are not infallible. Have a back-up plan. And 2) be flexible. Nothing is cast in stone.