After months of polls predicting a nail-biting election night, President-elect Donald Trump won decisive victories over Vice President Kamala Harris in the Electoral College and the popular vote.
Befuddled pundits and pollsters will spend months dissecting what went wrong for the Harris campaign, but early exit polls and vote counts suggest little went right. Mr. Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, swing states crucial to Harris’ path to victory, and garnered marked support amongst the black, latino and Gen Z voters the VP hoped to court.
One particularly interesting take way is the apparent failure of Harris’ pro-abortion message, which Politico called her “strongest issue” just two days ago.
“Abortion rights and Trump’s history of misogynistic comments is fueling a historic gender gap,” the outlet assessed, referring to Harris’ popularity with women and Trumps’ popularity with men. The article credited Harris with a “16-point lead on abortion” it speculated could help her clinch states like Iowa, where women over 65-years-old favored her 2-to-1 over Trump.
Harris lost Iowa by 13 percentage points — a far greater margin than expected. Of the seven states that passed pro-abortion ballot measures, Montana and Missouri voted for Trump. Nevada and Arizona are expected to follow.
Similar trends emerged in contested Senate races. In Ohio, Republican senatorial candidate Bernie Moreno faced heat for questioning why women over fifty cared about abortion rights. Ohio’s Attorney General, a Republican, told Politico, “I don’t think [these comments] could hurt [Moreno]. I think they do hurt him. Bernie Moreno is very vulnerable to women.”
Last night, Moreno defeated incumbent Sherrod Brown by a decisive four points, contributing to a new Republican majority in the Senate.
By all accounts, the Democratic party thought pro-abortion campaigning would mobilize more blue votes than it did. An ad tracking report obtained by Politico confirms the party spent $175 million on pro-abortion TV adds in 2024 to aid contested Senate races. In total, pro-abortion advertising accounted for 32% of all Democratic ad spending this year — far outpacing advertising on healthcare (14%) and immigration (13%).
“The investment reflects a party this is banking on abortion rights to save its Senate majority and win races across the map,” Politico opined, adding, “Polls consistently show voters trust Democrats far more than Republicans on abortion.”
The success of pro-abortion ballot measures in conservative states lends unfortunate credence to this analysis. But what if abortion wasn’t the single-issue Harris’ campaign believed would carry so many votes — particularly among women?
It wasn’t for Megyn Kelly, who indicated immigration and gender ideology were her top issues at a Trump rally Monday.
“President Trump closed the border,” she addressed the crowd. “Kamala Harris opened it, by choice. It wasn’t accidental. … Tell that to Laken Riley’s family. There was nothing humane about it.”
On men playing in girls’ sports, Kelly simply asked, “Why do our girls have to face brain damage in order to be kind to boys who want to invade their sports?”
In the end, Kelly argued American women don’t desperately need autonomy, as Harris had argued, but protection:
The New York Times, perhaps unwittingly, seemed to confirm Kelly’s statement earlier this week, noting that the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade hadn’t impacted Trump’s poll performance, but that the whole country, including Democrats, had shifted toward preferring stricter immigration policy.
When it comes to American elections, there’s no such thing as a sure thing. The Harris campaign bet heavy on women’s pro-abortion vote, and misjudged women’s top concerns altogether. It cost her big in the end.
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