The blame game among Democrats over Kamala Harris’ crushing defeat Tuesday night has been fierce and questions linger.
Was she the right candidate? Should President Joe Biden have retired earlier? Didn’t out-of-touch Democrats do enough to retain the working-class voters who have supported them for decades?
Nancy Pelosi turned the knife Friday, saying the party she has led for years should have had more time to consider its options outside of the vice president.
But one issue that has baffled many on the left is how on earth Harris’ campaign failed when it spent up to $1 billion filling television and cell phone screens with messages.
The accusations will continue until the campaign for the next presidential elections in 2028 begins again.
But despite all the accusations, it may have been just two words that did the most damage to Harris’ chances of being president: “They” and “them.”
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton has been one of the only voices in his party to speak out against the liberal stance on transgender athletes in women’s and girls’ sports.
Democratic presidential candidate US Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a speech conceding the 2024 US presidential election to President-elect Donald Trump
As such, he has faced calls to resign, but said The New York Times he stands firm in his beliefs and cites the fact that he is the father of two daughters. ‘
“Democrats spend too much time trying not to offend anyone instead of being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” he said. ‘I have two little girls. I don’t want a male athlete or former athlete running over them on the field, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.’
As a result, his top adviser Matt Chilliak resigned and Moulton has come under fire from Democrats and LGBTQ groups.
It is at the center of an issue that many believe led to Harris’ downfall.
Donald Trump’s team released an ad about Harris’ stance on transgender rights shortly after Biden made his dramatic decision not to run.
It focused on a comment the vice president made in 2019, when she inferred that she would support transgender inmates undergoing taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries.
The attack ad performed well both economically and socially with the slogan: “Kamala is for them.” “President Trump is for you.”
While Harris and her allies compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and said he would focus on revenge in his second term, it was this announcement that seemed to resonate most with voters.
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton has been one of the only voices in his party to speak out against the liberal stance on transgender athletes in women’s and girls’ sports.
Donald Trump’s campaign ran ads highlighting his opponent’s record on transgender issues
DailyMail.com pollster JL Partners, which predicted Trump’s historic victory, surveyed 1,000 voters a week before the election.
‘When ads focused on characters, Donald Trump was the beneficiary. That’s when we saw Trump’s vote increase, unlike when the Harris campaign focused on these issues, including abortion,” James Johnson, founder of JL Partners, told DailyMail.com.
‘Focus groups suggested Harris overreached with independents over her comment about Hitler and further galvanized Trump’s base. And it also invited attacks on its own flank, especially on transgender issues,” he added.
Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote, added: ‘Protecting children from the dangerous transgender industry played a key role in Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris.
“Both CatholicVote and the Trump campaign spent heavily to highlight Harris’ extremism, including her aggressive support for exploitative transgender medicines and surgeries paid for by American families.”
Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, finishes the 200-meter freestyle for the University of Pennsylvania at an Ivy League swimming meet against Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 22, 2022.
He added: ‘Traditional medical ethics, scientific studies and now even left-wing experts have recognized that these experiments pose serious risks to children and are deeply unpopular.
“Why Kamala Harris decided to address this issue remains one of the most baffling elements of her flawed campaign.”
JL Partners asked about the ads from both campaigns and which ones were more common in the final days of the campaign.
In the exhaustive questionnaire, 31 percent of all Americans said they had seen a political ad.
In the seven swing states, the primary targets of each campaign, this number rose to 49 percent.
Of those who had been exposed to a political ad, 66 percent said they had seen one from Kamala Harris compared to 58 percent who had seen one from the Trump campaign.
Donald Trump won the election after publishing ads about Kamala Harris’ character
The vice president’s ads about Trump’s character were the most viewed at 31 percent, quickly followed by abortion at 18 percent.
Just under three in 10 (28 percent) saw a Trump-endorsed ad attacking Harris’ character, while 20 percent dealt with the border, one of the main themes of the Republican’s third White House bid. .
But one of the most talked-about ads of the Trump campaign focused on Harris and transgender rights.
It featured footage from 2019 of Harris saying she supported taxpayer-funded surgery for transgender inmates.
Transgender rights have risen to prominence in political discourse in recent years.
Trump frequently said during his election campaign that he would ban “biological men” from playing women’s sports.
Supporters react as another takes a selfie as United States Democratic presidential candidate, United States Vice President Kamala Harris, delivers a speech acknowledging the 2024 United States presidential election.
In 2024, AdImpact data revealed that $123 million had been spent on ads focused on transgender athletes.
AP VoteCast data released after the election that collected voter attitudes suggested the message was successful.
Gallup polls between 2021 and 2023 showed that Republican opposition to transgender athletes playing on a team that matches their gender identity had already increased from 86 percent to 93 percent.
Harris was asked about her position and past politics during an NBC interview in October in the final stages of the campaign.
She avoided the question and said the issue should be left to the doctors.
“I think we should follow the law,” Harris began during an interview with Hallie Jackson.
Jackson interrupted Harris to point out that Trump was “trying to define her” on the issue and was spending millions of dollars on ads against her.
“I’m asking you to define yourself,” Jackson responded.
Kamala Harris being interviewed on NBC by Hallie Jackson
Harris said, “That’s a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary.” I’m not going to put myself in the position of a doctor.
He dismissed the line of questioning as a “distraction” and went on to highlight Trump’s most dramatic proposals for the country.
The Trump campaign bombarded homes across the country with its ad.
‘Kamala is for them; President Trump is for you,’ the ads conclude.
The vice president also dodged a similar question from Fox News host Bret Baier when asked if she still supports taxpayer-funded surgeries for illegal immigrants.