Hilary Rosen is a Democratic Political Analyst
I have known and liked Vice President Kamala Harris a long time, dating back to my years of working for Senator Dianne Feinstein. I have always admired her warmth and her character.
She is serious about public policy and she is committed to public service. I do believe her inherent joy in campaigning on behalf of the people—all the people—was showcased effectively during this campaign. It was obvious she worked her heart out.
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Joy in our work is something people aspire to even if many never have that experience. Which bring me to this campaign.
Like so many I am heartbroken at the result. Like so many I gave more money to this campaign than I have ever given in my lifetime to a presidential campaign. And like so many, I have questions. Questions that we deserve to have answered. And, given the scale of our losses on Tuesday night, it is now incumbent upon those who were inside of the campaign to provide them.
If we do not do an autopsy of what happened here, I fear—as so many others who have reached out to me fear—that we will fail to learn our lessons.
A billion dollars was spent on this campaign. Hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on focus groups, polling, voter targeting and data analysis. What did the data show? Who was responsible for it? Why do so many of the decisions seem so alien and wrong? Should more of us have spoken up about our doubts earlier? What didn’t we know about the decisions that were made?
So yes, I want answers. We all want answers. This felt like a winnable election that we lost, badly. And we need to be ruthlessly honest about that and why that happened.
1. What was the overall guiding strategy? And what was the data behind it? Did the Harris campaign simply take the Biden strategy of running a campaign solely focused on demonizing Donald Trump on its face? Or was there data that showed that was the only path? What created the shift from “Turn the Page” to “Country over Party”? What were the internal discussions about distancing from Joe Biden? Who made those decisions? Were they data driven? What was the decision-making process? Because from the outside it looked like, in stark contrast to the command and control of the Trump campaign, the Harris campaign had a lot of chiefs.
2. Why the huge focus on Liz Cheney? Was there any data that this much attention on her was going to bring in specific voters? If so, will you show us who they were? Who made this decision? My view at the time was that Cheney didn’t lose us votes (though there are a lot of progressives who disagree with me), but it sure seems like a huge amount of time and resources went into promoting her that might have been better spent elsewhere.
3. What happened to the economic message? Why could the campaign never settle on a simple message that would speak to working and lower middle class voters? This is our base, particularly among POC and minority groups. Who were the key players in that? What were the conflicting views that prevented cohesion? Would promoting an economic message in interviews instead that first month after the convention when people were really paying attention to her have been more successful? What did the data show about the impact of the choices that were made about the media strategy?
4. Why didn’t the Harris campaign try to deal with the obviously effective anti-trans ads? How was this discussed and what prevented a better pushback? This is a complicated issue and many voters who are not “trans-phobic” have legitimate questions. As a lesbian and a committed queer activist, I am not afraid of the conversation, why was the Harris campaign?
5. Did you have data suggesting that comparing Trump to Hitler and leaning in to calling him a fascist would persuade gettable voters to vote for us? What data convinced you that messaging was effective? There are many things in the failed Trump administration that we could have highlighted: How he promised the opening of new factories that never opened and an economic resurgence in Wisconsin and Michigan that never happened, and the amount of money he gave to developers of rental housing in his tax cut bill that went into their pockets instead of affordable housing. Were those ever tested? Did you think that John Kelly’s comments about him were really so persuasive with independents that they were worth millions of dollars of ad buy? Again, what did the data show among the voters she needed?
6. Governor Tim Walz came out of the gate hot and then seemed to disappear and do only rallies and few interviews. Was there a bad voter reaction? Did focus groups go negative? What were the implications of this pick?
7. Why did the campaign brag about the voter turnout effort so aggressively in the final weeks instead of positioning themselves as the underdog who needed more help? What data showed that low-propensity voters would be motivated by superstar rallies? If we knew who those voters were, what was the best way to get them to the polls?
I hope this list of questions begets more questions from others. We need transparency, and I hope the many dedicated professionals in the Harris campaign want to share their answers so we can all learn from this experience and do better next time.
It’s going to be a tough road back with some of these voters. Let’s commit to the fight.
