LOS ANGELES.–Democrats got more bad news today with a new Economist/YouGov poll showed that 45% of respondents approved the Republican Party, with only 39% approving in October. What a difference winning the White House means, reflecting the mood of voters that whatever 82-year-old President Joe Biden and 60-year-old Vice President Kamala Harris offered for the last four years, voters didn’t like it. Post-Nov. 5 election analysis showed that 78-year-old President-elect Donald Trump did better with all demographic groups, especially with Blacks and Latinos. Some 16% of Black voters supported Trump, with 24% of Black males supporting Trump in the last election. Black voters apparently didn’t like 63-year-old President Barack Obama berating Black male voters, telling them to wake up and back Kamala. All of Barack’s lectures backfired in 2024, handing the election to Trump.
Turning the tide in GOP approval ratings, Trump offered disgruntled voters a brighter future than the one presented by Kamala. Kamala talked a lot about civil, gender and women’s right but not much about how she planned to fix a broken economy and foreign policy. Admitting she planned to carry on Biden’s Ukraine proxy war, Kamala offered voters no hope only more of the same, leading to high inflation and high interest rates. Economist/YouGov polls showed Democrats with a 50% approval rating, down from 53% in October. So, the trend for Democrats is downward, compared to Republicans moving up in the ranks. Clearly, voters in general thought the country was going in the wrong direction, despite the U.S. press almost universally backing Kamala’s campaign. Trump ran his campaign against the corrupt U.S. press that nearly backed Kamala 100%.
Since Trump trounced Kamala Nov. 5, Democrats have been hard-pressed coming up with a coherent explanation why they lost so badly. With 95% of the U.S. press backing Kamala, why don’t press opinions count like they did in the past? You’d guess that if the press backed Kamala, why wouldn’t ordinary voters too. Trump was certainly demonized by the mainstream press, calling him “unhinged,” “unfit” and a “dictator” and “fascist.” All the negative views of Trump seemed to resonate all major news networks, telling the public daily he was a threat to democracy, seeing to during the U.S. into dictatorship. Voters sloughed off all the negative descriptions of Trump, eventually finding him the better option. Harris actually called Trump a “fascist” to CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Voters apparently got fed up with the media’s constant denigration of Trump.
Listening to Kamala’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon and chief strategist David Plouffe, you’d think that they had nothing to do with Kamala’s loss. Plouffe actually said with a straight face that it was hard for Democrats to win battle ground states. Plouffe told CNN’s Erin Burnett Nov. 5 that Kamala would win all seven battleground states. Burnett said to Plouffe, “really?” O’Malley Dillon and Plouffe couldn’t explain how the campaign spent $1.6 billion in 107 days, the length of Kamala’s campaign. Plouffe knows that Biden won all seven battleground states in 2020, completely contradicting himself about how difficult it is for Democrats to win swing states. O’Malley Dillon and Plouffe took no responsibility for structuring a campaign around attacking Trump with old Democrat talking points but offering no vision of the next four years.
Former President Bill Clinton’s chief strategist 80-year-old James Carville predicted with 100% certainty that Kamala would win the election Nov. 5. Carville said Kamala would win because she spent far more than Trump on the 2024 campaign. Well, Carville badly miscalculated believing that the country, as Kamala liked to say, couldn’t go back. Kamala asked voter not to go back to Trump but asked them to go along with her last four years, knowing that things go a lot worse. Democrats and the press tried to convince voters that they were better off than they were under Trump. Most voters recalled the days with more affordable prices for everything from avocados to automobiles. Voters didn’t buy when Kamala blamed inflation not on White House policies but on corporate price gouging. Voters wanted Kamala to take some responsibility but she refused.
Republicans increased in public favorability because Trump won the election in convincing manner. Kamala and her 60-year-old Minn. Gov. VP Tim Walz were all made to look like amateurs while Trump picks a high profile Cabinet designed to run the government for the next four years. All the fake news talks about now is how Trump’s tariffs could add to inflation. Are Democrat and the press really that cynical that Trump would make the economy and foreign policy worse? Voters handed Trump the keys to the kingdom because they thought he’d do a better job than Kamala over the next four years. If Democrats want to improve their approval ratings, they need to stop demonizing Trump and give the man a chance to turn things around. When voters hear more whining in the fake news about tariffs and Trump’s Cabinet picks, Democrats can expect their approval ratings to drop more.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
