A couple thoughts on the election

As I was driving by this morning, I saw a man standing on the corner across from Vice President Kamala Harris’s U.S. Naval Observatory residence holding a hand-made, poster board sign that said, “It wasn’t your fault.”

I tend to agree with him.

As more state elections results were called today, they showed that Trump won not just a couple swing states, but several of them—the traditional “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania (with over 95% of the vote tallied, 50% to 49%, over 133,000 votes, according to the New York Times elections results map); Wisconsin (with over 95% of the votes in, by 0.9%, about 29,500 votes); Michigan (by 1.4%, over 81,000 votes); as well as Georgia (with over 95% of the votes in, by 2% points, over 100,000 votes); in addition to North Carolina (with over 95% of the votes in, by 3% points, or over 190,000 votes. (As of this writing, on Wednesday afternoon, Nevada and Arizona had yet to be called, but Trump was leading in both).

As of  Wednesday afternoon, the elections results from 48 called states showed Trump winning not only the Electoral College vote (295 to 226 so far), but the popular vote as well (Harris with 67.27 million votes, to Trump’s 72.08 million).

The results seemed so decisive. It reinforced the sense that the inflation hangover and the issue of the economy really mattered more to more people and that made them anti-incumbent, and Harris was seen as basically the incumbent.

I don’t think that there is much more Harris could have done. She rose to the occasion when Biden dropped out of the race this summer and campaigned her neck off. She took no locale, no potential constituency for granted. Volunteers worked incredibly hard to get out the vote. The votes just weren’t there.

For many who wanted a different outcome, the result is crushing, bewildering, and very frightening.

I find myself taking some small comfort in the fact that it is decisive. That it does not seem the results would have been vastly different if Harris had only campaigned more in Pittsburgh or Wisconsin or North Carolina; or tweaked her messaging; or picked a different VP running mate; or distanced herself from Biden on Gaza. Distancing herself from Biden on Gaza might have helped her in Dearborn, Michigan; but would likely have cost her other voters elsewhere; picking Josh Shapiro as her VP running mate might have helped her in Pennsylvania, but would have likely cost her more votes in Dearborn; and I don’t think any of them would have been decisive.

I think the main issue was, she was the vice president in an administration which many voters saw as coinciding with being worse off economically than they thought they were under Trump, before the Covid pandemic.

In the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area over the weekend, I had a few really interesting conversations with voters that stuck with me, and came to mind as the elections results came in overnight and today. One was with a 62 year old steelworker, in an area called McKees Rocks, a borough of about 6000 people, four miles from downtown Pittsburgh. The “Rocks” had a median income of about $26,000 per individual, and $34,000 per household, in 2022.

The steelworker, sitting outside his white clap-board home set up on a steep hillside, with a cat walking around his legs and a five month old puppy inside, said he did not love Trump, but he was voting for him. He said the cost of living had been terrible for him the past four years, and he thought his personal economic circumstances had been better under Trump. He said he was a member of a steel workers union, but he had nothing good to say about the union. He said maybe Trump’s ideas for tariffs would be good for him.

He said he had worked his ass off for over 30 years, and was terrified when he retired in a few years how he and his family would cope economically.

He had a 20 something year old son I chatted with as I was leaving, who said that he did not plan to vote.

Another resident on the same street, a Black mother, said she planned to vote for Harris. Her 20 something son, standing outside dealing with some crisis involving his car, said he would vote for Harris, too.

Another woman on the street cited having daughters and granddaughters as why she would be voting for Harris and Democrats up and down the ticket.

In another area, called Coraopolis, further west along the Ohio River in Moon Township, I came upon a man and woman loudly arguing on the front porch of their house on Sunday afternoon about the election. They turned out to be an adult brother and sister, who looked to be in their late 30s. He was for Trump, and she was for Harris. He had two Trump signs on the front lawn, and she had a Harris sign. The brother said he was a member of the Teamsters Union, and he knew several other members of his local Teamsters branch that, like him, would be voting for Trump on election day. His sister was still screaming at him about Trump and January 6 as I moved on.  

Also came across several people, many women, who said they were voting for Harris and Democrats up and down the ticket. Two women I spoke to in a shop in the Shadyside area of Pittsburgh Monday were both for Harris. But one said she had a 31 year old son voting for Trump, which she found incredibly alienating. She described his rightward drift and support for Trump as including that he was bothered by the transgender issue and immigration. She mentioned that he had a Cuban-born wife not registered to vote, three young daughters, and a PhD in chemistry.

I also spoke to a number of people in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh on Monday, almost all of whom were supporting Harris. “Oh yeah, f--- the Republicans,” one man told me from his home on elegant Mt. Royal Street, the leaves turning red and gold, on the unusually balmy November day, before he excused himself to go back to a work call.

Election results show that Harris handily won Allegheny County (which includes Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania, by almost 20 points, almost 140,000 votes. But she lost Pennsylvania by about 132,000 votes.

Photo of duelling Trump and Harris signs on the front yard of a house in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 3, 2024, where the adult brother supported Trump, and the sister Harris.

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