With President-Elect Donald Trump set to be inaugurated on January 20, Democrats have been scrambling to determine what went wrong. The party has been quick to determine 2024 as a defeat for the entire party as Republicans took or maintained control of the Senate, House, Presidency, and even Governor seats. However, even though the party is quick to determine that the election was a failure by the Democratic party as a whole, it might just be the failure of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Harris lost an expected election in blowout fashion. Harris lost all seven battleground states as well as being the first Democrat to lose the popular vote in two decades. Harris’s campaign was an underwhelming one, especially compared to Biden’s 2020 election victory over Donald Trump in his reelection bid. But the Democrats should be proud of their performance, excluding Harris.
First of all, Democrats outperformed Harris in every, single, battleground state (besides Georgia where there were only presidential and House elections). In Pennsylvania, Harris lost by 1.7% while Democrat Bob Casey lost his Senate reelection bid by only 0.2%. Harris lost in North Carolina by 3.2% while Democrat Josh Stein had the largest Democrat win in a swing state (excluding the house) as he won in his gubernatorial bid by 15%. In Michigan, Harris lost by 1.4% as Elissa Slotkin won her Senate race by 0.3%. Harris’s closest loss in Wisconsin, only 0.8%, was accompanied by Senator Tammy Baldwin’s reelection win at 0.9%. Trump’s largest swing state win, Arizona by 5.5%, was offset when Senator-elect Ruben Gallego won by 2.4%. Finally, Nevada elected Trump to the presidency by 3.1%, and Democrat Jacky Rosen to the Senate with 1.7%.
Second of all, Democrats losing control of the House isn’t as terrible as it may seem. Since Bill Clinton won the presidency and House in 1992, every President’s party has had control of the House in the President’s first Congress of their first term (Trump’s non-consecutive reelection is essentially a “new” first term). So, Democrats losing control of the House is typical. It is also important to note that since Republicans took hold of the House in 2010, the opposing party has won the House in the second Congress of a President’s term, meaning a Democrat House in 2026 is not out of the question.
Overall, while it is easy to look at the Democratic party and say that the 2024 election was a complete failure, Democrats succeeded where Harris failed and lost the House in the typical fashion of the opposing party of a new President. So, for the Democrats, it’s not time to panic, quite the opposite. Democrats made major ground in terms of Senate and gubernatorial races and have set up for Democratic control of the House, and possibly even Senate in the 2026 midterms. If the Democrats can just learn from Harris’s loss, it can set up for the Democrats to have a completely unified government in 2028.
