Harris’ Unlikely Chance: A History of Democratic Repeated Failures

William Henry Harrison, who served as the ninth U.S. president is known as the final leader to have been born a British subject. He was also the first to represent the Whig Party and win a term in the White House. Harrison holds the record for the lengthiest inaugural speech, which took an exhausting two hours. Unfortunately, his presidency was the shortest, as he marked the sad milestone of being the first sitting president to pass away within just a month into his duty.

Harrison’s peculiar political trajectory ended with a victory after an initial defeat in the presidential election. This feat, earlier only achieved by Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, hasn’t been replicated since, other than by Richard Nixon, though much later. Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump are the unique pair who managed a win after an intermittent failure.

However, the pathway of a defeat followed by a success doesn’t seem too optimistic for Democrats, who suffer dark sequences of consecutive electoral losses. Few examples include Adlai Stevenson and Thomas Dewey, both of whom lost twice. This pattern prevails strongly with the likes of Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan, who, despite running thrice consecutively, faced repeated defeats.

This points out to the unpleasant fact that the electorate generally doesn’t show fondness for those previously beaten. Kamala Harris seemed to bear the brunt of this theory as conjecture about her potential run for the White House once again started circulating. This followed closely behind her recent announcement of staying out of the governor race in California.

Nowadays, the Democratic Party finds itself in considerable disfavor, with a strikingly high net negativity touching -30 points, which is almost three times worse than the -11 points for the GOP. It’s noteworthy that the Democrats are witnessing the worst popularity slump in almost 35 years.

A part of the blame lies internally among Democrats, who are upset over two main issues. One, their loss to Trump, which perplexes them to no end, and second, their inability to create significant hindrance for Trump even after his transition to power. While not entirely her fault, Kamala Harris has become a symbol of this dissatisfaction within the party.

However, this Democratic discontent is far from united. The progressive camp feels that their party isn’t battling strenuously enough, whereas the more centrally inclined Democrats lament that their party is picking up the wrong fights. They blame the party for excessively leaning towards cultural and identity political issues.

An undercurrent of earnest aspiration for a win weaves the different factions of the Democrats together. The only notable rise of Harris to a potential 2024 nominee position was due to being a diversity selection. It was well known that Biden intended to choose a woman, and an African American as a running mate.

However, Kamala Harris’ stumbling block isn’t her racial identity or gender, but her stark inability to reel in voters to strengthen the Democratic coalition. A critical factor for a Democratic victory would be their capacity to seduce Trump’s voters. Her electoral failure was not due to the lack of Democrat enthusiasm but resulted from her inability to resonate with the evolving, dynamic electorate.

Harris’ rhetoric failed to instill inspiration and instead likened her to a headmaster at a small left-leaning educational institution. With the sole exemption of reproductive rights, her beliefs came across as artificial and driven by focus group data, which disappointed voters who were starved for authenticity.

In a stunning blunder, Harris yielded to Biden’s whim to not create any distance from him. This became apparent when she chose ‘The Late Show’ with Stephen Colbert for her first interview post-resignation. The content may have been tantalizing to Colbert’s ideologically motivated viewers, but the Democrats have to look beyond this rigid crowd to secure a win.

The flawed strategy of wooing a partisan base suggests that should Harris get another Democratic nomination, she might just end up as an interesting anecdote in history. However, this trivia would not revolve around her being the 48th U.S. president.