It has happened again, the Democrats have faced yet another disappointing and disheartening defeat, and the debate as to why has already begun. Biden’s initial determination to stay in the presidential race despite worries about his health and age most definitely negatively impacted Harris’ chances of winning the election. If the Democratic Party (DP) had been planning who would be Biden’s successor from the very first day of his incumbency, I like to imagine they would have been victorious against the Republican Party (RP). From the very beginning of the race, Democrat and Republican voters alike believed that Biden was too elderly and unwell for the job. Although not necessarily filled with sprightly youth, Donald Trump is slightly more able to string together a coherent sentence compared to his first opponent Biden. Naturally, this makes me come to the conclusion that the longer Biden was the leader of the DP, the more votes they were losing, as swing voters decided to opt for the marginally less senile candidate—making it very difficult for Harris to regain such numbers.

Elon Musk has also been a key figure in the presidential race, and it is impossible not to look into his acquisition of Twitter and its very damaging effects for Harris. With a massive 203 million followers, Musk’s influence is undeniable. At least eightyseven of his posts regarding the election this year have promoted claims that fact-checkers have rated as misleading or false and have gathered 2 billion views (Center for Countering Digital Hate report). This led to users of X (formerly Twitter) in Pennsylvania (one of the seven swing states) calling out local administrators over flagging incomplete voter registration forms which would not have been processed and falsely casting the events as examples of voter fraud, and therefore counting as election interference. However, Philip Hensley-Robin (Pennsylvania executive director at Common Cause, a nonpartisan organisation which promotes accountable government and voting rights) said at a press briefing on Monday the 4th of November: “...we know very clearly that election officials and election administrators in all of our counties were following the rules and ... therefore only eligible voters are voting.” Moreover, Cyabra, a firm that uses AI to detect online misinformation, said an X account with 117 thousand followers also impacted the election by spreading a fake video of Pennsylvanian mail-in ballots for the RP being destroyed.

One could also describe Harris’ campaign as “too focused” on women, therefore alienating people of different genders within her audience. Harris stressed the importance of reversing Roe v. Wade and women’s reproductive rights throughout her campaign, which may have been part of the reason she failed. Despite thinking that she was successfully appealing to younger voters, female voters, ethnic minority voters, etc., she was in fact losing many white heterosexual male voters. For example, her use of Charli XCX’s new album Brat to promote her campaign, created divide instead of union between her voters; the younger generations of women potentially viewing her as a youthful and “down with the kids”, but the older generations of women presumably seeing her as a more unserious figure.

Even though Harris’ tactics may have brought her a new crowd of voters, it simultaneously cost her many of the DP’s more centrist voters. Additionally, despite being an overly qualified candidate, as a black and Asian woman, Harris’ chances of beating her white male opponent were incredibly slim. As we observed Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, I came to the same conclusion; no woman can defeat Trump in the current political climate in the US. Only another white man can and will succeed against him. If the DP had found this kind of candidate, there is every chance they would have been successful, but unfortunately they must pass the baton over to Donald Trump and the Republican Party.