Trump wins presidency for second time

I see Kamala's issues as follows:

1. She's one of the least liked candidates in history. The Democrats haven't run a real "change" candidate that could cross the aisles since Obama. Hillary was already widely disliked and sank herself with the "deplorables" comment. Kamala did exactly the same with "Nazis, Fascists, Dictators, White Supremacists, etc". It's all I heard and it came to a point I started feeling attacked exclusively for my race. It was difficult at this point to listen to what little policy she actually had: most of it sounded exactly like the last 4 years. To put the cherry on top she also couldn't even poll well among her own constituents until Biden bowed out and she was decreed the pick by the DNC.

2. The top polling issues were immigration and the economy. Neither issue Kamala really addressed outside of some feel-good statements like free money for homes and somehow passing a price cap on groceries. She made no statement no immigration and even went so far as to say she wouldn't change anything from the last 4 years. Trump on the other hand did very well laser targeting these issues and pulled moderates and even democrats as a "lesser of two evils".

3. The constant bleeting on about felonies, "rapist", etc made it seem to most average Americans that the court cases were simply lawfare designed to punish Americans for not voting for Hillary. Trump in this case was just a sacrificial goat.

4. The weaponization of the FBI against parents protesting school board meetings, the seemingly intense focus on so-called "right wing violence" even after living through the George Floyd riots, etc was distasteful to a lot pro-police Americans.

5. The media is decidedly left-to-far-left leaning. What this means is the majority of major news outlets, Youtube, Twitch, TikTok, Music, Movies, etc all preach "the message". This oversaturation of the progressive message, paired with many moderate Americans thinking progressivism has gone too far, likely contributed to it. Further, it likely contributed to lower Democrat turnout as they were already claiming victory in August.

6. You can't salvage a campaign by having movie and music stars endorse you when the average consumption of this media is at historical lows. You can't salvage a campaign by bringing Obama out as The Closer.

7. And finally for me, the strong "pro-women" policies are distasteful for me. Not because I hate women, but because there's decades of data showing our school system, government, and policies are failing young boys. I cannot in good conscious vote for a candidate who will not do anything to help men's issues at this point. I can't vote for a candidate who wants to enshrine gender-specific constitutional changes. Particularly, evening the playing field for boys in school, removing affirmative action, and instituting an equal "male abortion" rule that will help tip the family courts back to even. If we want equality we should strive for true equality. I want true equality.

Was expected, lot of Americans don't want to be represented by either of those two candidates.

Yes, here is a very good breakdown of how polls were systematically wrong by the French guy who just made over $40mm of profit betting on Trump in the prediction markets:

https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1853818243003125934

He put Trump's true probability of winning at 90% and a win of the popular vote at 75%.

The Republican party is also flipping seats in the Senate and the House, yet you seem focused on Harris. It's not that people are voting for other Democratic candidates, the country is simply becoming more conservative as people leaning on left are simply not voting.

This is my take as well.

I was opposed to Biden dropping out because skipping the primary means you go into the general election without the real pulse of the voters in your party.

I think Democrats in general are putting far too much weight on survey based polls, and not enough on ballet box polls.

I wouldn't even rule out 2020 like you're doing - I think Biden is actually a very compelling candidate for a lot of folks that don't get much mention in typical democratic discussion circles. Religious, relatively socially conservative but economically left (traditional union left, not neo-liberal), white, male.

While people complained about it not being Sanders online - Sanders and Biden were fairly similar platforms in a lot of respects, with the difference being that corporate money was less hostile to Biden - and it's telling that they were the only two to take any significant percentage of the primary vote (no other candidate broke 3mm votes)

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Basically - I think there's a solid chance that despite the polling news around the first debate, Biden might have actually performed more strongly on election night.

As an extra note - As someone who was initially very critical of Biden... I have a lurking suspicion that he's going to be considered an excellent president in a historical context because he managed to invest heavily in infrastructure.