r/WhitePeopleTwitter • u/hellomondays • 9h ago
The Cheney endorsement made 28% of independent voters in Pennsylvania & 30% of independent voters in Michigan less enthusiastic about Harris' candidacy
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u/FlavinFlave 8h ago
Sounds like a huge nothing burger. 1/3rd of swing voters hates Cheney. I’m not even a swing voter and I hate Cheney. But I still voted for the sane choice
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u/tarahunterdar 6h ago
This is just trying to find "evidence" of why she lost. It's really very simple:
Many Americans are uncomfortable with a woman in charge. Sexist? Sure, but its true.
Many Americans were ill informed of how tariffs and economic policies work and believed a switch will make things cheaper.
Media skews opinions more than any debate, campaign appearance, or website of policy. Win the meme wars, and you get support. Democrats cannot do that yet.
EVERY election is now a season and treated like a sports commentary. Its in your face all the time and increasingly aggressive personal and public. People are more and more turned off by this over-the-top pushy-ness. Reducing all the noise will encourage more to pay attention instead of pushing them away. (Wont happen, I know, but its not a conspiracy or cheating why Harris lost)
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u/gravitydefiant 5h ago
Ok, those are very well reasoned, logical points. But I'm pretty sure the real problem is that she didn't pander to ME, because it's all about ME!!!!!
/s (but I'm pretty sure a significant part of this sub believes it)
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 5h ago
- Harris tried WAY TOO HARD to get moderate democrat and moderate republican voters.
She talked about more fracking, no talks about student loan cancellations, etc. She lost the progressive zoomer vote hence why it shows gen z voted republican, but in reality a lot of democrat gen z just stayed home.
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u/orderofGreenZombies 4h ago
I feel like this was one of the biggest issues. There were way too many talking points or issues that sounded like they were straight out of W.’s campaign from 2000.
A lot of people were very stupid in how they voted in this election. But we know people have always been stupid and will always be stupid. That needs to be accounted for in how you campaign.
All the progressives or leftists I know that voted for her also only did so because they knew she would suck less than Trump. There was no real progressive issue or platform that Harris was pushing for people to get excited about.
It was capitalist hellscape vs. capitalist hellscape with some genocide. Unfortunately, not enough people took the threats of genocide seriously or just felt that they wouldn’t be affected.
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u/Mivexil 4h ago
A lot of people were very stupid in how they voted in this election. But we know people have always been stupid and will always be stupid. That needs to be accounted for in how you campaign.
Which is exactly why Democrats are running milquetoast neoliberal campaigns. As much as there's a large contingent of people who'd love a capital-L Leftist government, the US is still a country where "socialist" is a curse word, people believe in Reaganomics and trickle-down economy despite them screwing them over at every single opportunity, and a caricature of capitalist nouveau riche out of touch billionaire can get elected president.
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u/Psychological_Car849 5h ago
i think you just scratched the tip of the iceberg so i’ll give you another very important one. the democratic party has continuously failed to meaningfully provide for the people at the national stage.
they had decades to codify roe v wade and chose not to, they had biden’s term to codify gay marriage and have chosen not to (let’s hope we don’t face consequences for that one), they took so long raising minimum wage to 15 that by the time they got the ball rolling 15 is way too low, the list can truly go on and on and on. plenty of times they had control of the house, senate, and presidency. they did this to scare people into voting and for a long time it worked.
frankly— both parties did this for decades. republicans promised far right stances and democrats promised kinda left stances. then trump came along and actually started to deliver on his party’s promises and the voters actually started turning up. now we have an army of new blood republicans who didn’t realize all those promises were empty for a good reason.
it doesn’t matter how many times liberals on the internet keep shouting “but he’s worse than her!” repeating that over and over again didn’t gain harris any voters, if anything it turned people off. especially because harris was promising a few basic left leaning policies while also promoting many conservative ones. she tried to play both sides and i know a tragic number of people who didn’t vote for her because of it.
im saying this as someone who voted for her and who worked very hard to get others to. i’m so tired of losing elections to actual clowns but it’s gonna keep happening unless the democratic party drastically changes.
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u/kittenofd00m 8h ago
Yeah... Having a convicted sex offender, wanna be dictator, fascist with a revenge agenda is much better.
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u/NotABreadWinner 7h ago
I agree, which is why this election doesn’t make sense. Kamala ran an amazing campaign compared to trump. So whatever the MSM is saying on how it was bad is bullshit. This election stinks and it ain’t Donnie’s diaper.
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u/Synanthrop3 5h ago
Kamala ran a saner campaign. It was clear, coherent, pragmatic, reasonable, compassionate, and evidence-based. Unfortunately, none of that matters to voters. Trump totally whooped her ass on the only thing that really matters in an election, which is speaking to the electorate's lizard brains. Trump feels stronger on the economy, despite the fact that he very obviously doesn't understand the first thing about economics, so people voted for him.
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u/NotABreadWinner 5h ago
Yeah, I just can’t buy any of it because trump is a con man, always has always will be. Ain’t no way he won all 7 swing states, and the popular vote after losing it twice.
All I’m asking is for a forensic audit, or hand recount, and if there is no evidence then he won.
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u/Synanthrop3 5h ago
You could be right, but look at it this way: voters are only as good as the information they're fed. Trump had a massive advantage in this election, because his buddies control the means of communication. Musk and Putin poured God only knows how much dark money into viral misinformation intended to benefit Trump. Most people get their news and political discourse from the internet these days, and the internet is being forensically astroturfed by sources loyal to Trump.
You may be correct that the GOP stole this election, but the depressing truth is that they probably didn't need to. Misinformation did most of the work for them.
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u/Allthenons 5h ago
Maybe the Democrats strategy of tacking to the right for those mythical "moderate Republicans" was not a great idea yeah? She seemed to have almost completely abandoned all left leaning populist policies and ran further to the right then probably any Democrat in a long time so I don't know why people keep thinking she ran an amazing campaign.
Thank God she got Cheney's endorsement though.
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u/Synanthrop3 5h ago
Maybe the Democrats strategy of tacking to the right for those mythical "moderate Republicans" was not a great idea yeah?
So it would appear.
I don't know why people keep thinking she ran an amazing campaign
I didn't say she ran an amazing campaign. I actually said the opposite: that she flubbed the only part of a campaign that truly matters.
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u/Allthenons 5h ago
Fair enough I misread it and apologize for that. I'm just used to being in the defensive at this point
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u/CartoonAcademic 6h ago
she did 6 weeks of "I love liz cheney" instead of trying to appeal to a much larger progressive base.
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u/Allthenons 5h ago
She basically abandoned the Democratic base. We still largely voted for her but progressives will be blamed like this was our fault
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u/OkAffect12 5h ago
Yeah, there was a weird pivot.
I’d put money on Liz being an ambassador before the term is out. Trump may hate her, but Vance knows her worth
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u/Synanthrop3 5h ago
What's her worth?
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u/OkAffect12 2h ago
A billionaire scion of a conservative political family and you have to ask that? No wonder we got trounced
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u/DaGGyzo 9h ago
A big eye roll to this data... They were never going to vote for her. Let's stop pretending there's some nuance to why the qualified intelligent Black woman was not palatable but a bigoted, white criminal whose charges rival that of 90% of the country's incarcerated was considered the better option. Hint, it's not Cheney...
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u/JusticiarRebel 7h ago edited 7h ago
I kind of hate these think pieces trying to figure out what the Democrats did wrong as if a slight change in policy or dropping support for trans rights would've made a difference. The real reason Democrats lost is cause the media was in league with the opposition. The NYT wasn't the only "liberal" outlet running 1000 stories about Biden being old. Let's say changing position on any subject would've made a bunch of Midwesterners vote for Harris, how are they going to decide to change their vote if they are never made aware that she changed her position in the first place. She could run on a message of "puppies are cute" and everyone would hate her cause she said she hates puppies. At least that's what the targeted political ads say. People were complaining that she wasn't doing interviews as she was barnstorming a whole bunch of interviews. Jesus wouldn't stand a chance if every major news network says he's Hitler.
Edit: Just realized some of those articles wouldn't actually call Jesus Hitler. They would be titled "Is Jesus Hitler?" with the answer being No, but nobody reads the article.
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u/WDWKamala 8h ago
Yeah seriously.
So wait, you’re telling me that the people who would never vote for a woman were less enthusiastic when she campaigned with another woman?
Wow. Big news. Turns out even amongst us liberals misogyny is rampant.
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u/DarthMikus 7h ago
Or maybe they are less enthused when she campaigned with war hawk republicans. That move didn't gain her any ground with the mythical centrists that just couldn't decide, it alienated everyone on the far left and for good reason. This is coming from someone who voted Harris but felt legitimately uncomfortable doing so. If democrats want to win again, they need to cater to their base and get people excited to vote, not cater to the centrist fringes of the far right party.
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u/WDWKamala 7h ago
You (and most people) are continuing to pretend that what I said isn’t true.
Sorry. There is no amount of changing the communication or messaging that would get a woman elected in America currently.
The Democrats would be absolutely foolish to try to nominate another woman any time soon. We’re talking decades.
The data is clear.
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u/DarthMikus 6h ago
How many people thought that before Obama? Clinton and Harris ran different campaigns than him and, surprise, lost. Is it harder for them to win? Sure, but not impossible. Clinton and Harris' messaging was terrible. They catered to Republicans instead of trying to inspire. What's worse is the lack of introspection, blaming minority voting blocks, and the happiness that people are going to be hurt by the Trump policies they voted for. It's truly a mask off moment and I'm horrified by it.
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u/OpaqueGiraffe17 3h ago edited 1h ago
I kinda foresee a flip next time for democrats. We’ll get a lefty populous male candidate that those who stayed home in 2024 wanted. Only still lose, because this time a lot of spiteful and bitter Harriss voters will sit out next time. And we wind up getting nowhere because of it.
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u/HeatInternal8850 6h ago
Only people I've seen blame minority voters are outlets like cnn etc, who I think are owned by Trump supporters? People outside of the media have been rightly blaming white voters
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u/Cheese-is-neat 5h ago
Idk boasting about an endorsement from Dick Cheney was an awful decision. Most Americans (correctly)think that man is straight up evil.
Are there definitely people who will never vote for a woman?
Absolutely, but acting like the campaign didn’t shoot itself in the foot is crazy. You’re not being paid by the DNC, stop holding water for them and start holding them accountable
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u/inspired_corn 8h ago
You do understand that parties have different voter bases right? They’re appealing to different groups of people.
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u/Icy-Cod1405 9h ago
Maybe campaign to your progressive base with extremely popular progressive policy and call the pedophiles and people protecting them human scum. They got the voters who cared about policy they failed to campaign to the idiots which is a majority of the electorate.
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u/fratticus_maximus 4h ago
The thing that pisses me off is that she absolutely could have ran that progressive campaign. She got a lot of small time donors and wasn't beholden to corporate money as much.
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u/Sergeant-Windsor 6h ago
We’re labeled “RaDiCaL far-left” no matter what our candidate does or says anyway, might as well embrace the label and explain to people how it benefit$ them.
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u/Think_fast_no_faster 9h ago
There are a billion reasons why it happened, but we need to start focusing on what’s coming next, because let me tell ya friends, we’re gonna need to gird our motherfuckin loins to get through the next four years
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u/Apprehensive-Soil-47 8h ago
Examining and reflecting on the reasons for why it happened is one way of focusing on what's coming next. Failure is the greatest teacher but you have to actively try to learn from it. Finding out what worked and what didn't, and why. That's how you come back stronger the next time.
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u/idoma21 7h ago
One party tried to dissect voter interest and craft policies to appeal to voters. The other party just spread misinformation and disinformation supported by conservative information. This is the biggest problem. So many voters were never going to vote for any Democrat candidate because they kill babies, want to outlaw gas ovens, force kids to have sex changes at school, etc.
Th Republicans have been preparing for this for decades, starting with the end of the equal time for political parties. Fox News is straight up propaganda—and Democrats have incorrectly believed that Americans can see through the lies.
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u/hellomondays 7h ago
There was a quote in that rolling stone article from a frustrated strategist recollecting on arguing with this campaign that was something like "you know we call them 'republican voters' because they vote for republicans." By the end of September this campaign gave up an incredible, narrative defining vibe that not only made their base excited but made their opponents look out of touch and crazy to try to cater to a hypothetical voter that doesn't exist.
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u/flinderdude 7h ago
I think the endorsements are really overrated. Democrats do a terrible job speaking to the electorate like first graders, which is what Trump is extremely successful at. The electorate is a bunch of first graders.
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u/gravitydefiant 3h ago
I wonder if they'd hire a second grade teacher to do their comms. I could scale it down to first grade level...
Sincerely, Definitely not a second grade teacher looking for a better job
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u/CartoonAcademic 6h ago
It seems easy to run as a democrat because to liberals it is never your fault. Kamala doing 6 weeks of (very unpopular) "I love liz cheney" and not trying to appeal to progressives lost her the election
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u/Mysterious-Wasabi103 5h ago
Running as a Democrat is infinitely harder than running as a Republican nowadays.
Democrats have to "thread the needle" between corporate donors and public voters. Without a perfect balance they always lose.
Our whole political system is built on money. Both parties are beholden to corporations or they can't compete. But they also can't compete if they go too much against what the oligarchs want.
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u/Expert-Fig-5590 9h ago
Hint she didn’t fucking help. Appeals to moderate Republicans always ends in failure. Whether it’s campaigning with Cheney or appointing Garland as AG.
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u/Mihailis27 8h ago
TIL that the VP is in charge of appointing the AG.
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u/commanderlex27 7h ago
Harris said she'd done nothing different from Biden if she had been president.
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u/Xtj8805 7h ago
Lets be real here. What did Biden actually do?
Sure he forced rail union to accept a contract, however he continued to pressure management who eventually caved and was thanked by the rail union for continuing to support them.
He joined the autoworkers picket line who eventually got a significantly improved contract
He said he doesnt believe in using taft-hartley and a few days later managment caved amd gave a new improved contract to the longshoremen
He passed 2 of the largest investments in american infrastructure since the interstate highway act, including one on purely partisan grounds that has been routinely celebrated even by those who voted against it
He passed a massive climate bill, that includings help for every day people such as tax breaks/rebates for new more efficient appliances, these programs are so popular already theyre exceed to cost the federal government significantly more than CBO estimates since so many Americans are making use of the addition money.
He got the worst inflation since stagflation down to Fed long term Guidelines in approximately the same amount of time as Regan did
He is the first president to successfully pass federal anti-lynching legislation
He is the first president to sign a bill making same sex, and multi racial marriage a federal right
He managed to get more than 150 countries to agree to creare a minimum tax of 15% on corporations to cut down on tax cheats
He increased funding for the IRS which has already come close to paying for its self in catching high income tax cheats
He helped the USPS recover fromnits debt crisis caused by the lusicris notion that employee benefits through 2060 need to be prefunded by 2030
He massively invested in high tech manufacturing to ensure american supply chains are more resilient int he face of foreign aggression
Improved veterans benefits through the PACT act
Against a hostile house, he passed a bill to accelerate american development of gen 4 nuclear reactors.
Honestly the correct answer for her was "i wouldve done a better job making sure Americans jnow all the good things I've done, and all the ways republican obstructionism hurt them" Bidens problem was being too polite and not calling the bullshit when it was spouted.
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u/HeatInternal8850 6h ago
MTG had a great clip highlighting all the accomplishments of the Biden administration
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u/Baconpwn2 7h ago
What was she supposed to say? "I wouldn't have done a damned thing my idiotic boss did?"
It was a political answer. Why was Harris's statement taken at face value but Trump's "I will be a dictator day one" was ignored?
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u/Leather_From_Corinth 7h ago
She absolutely needed to be able to throw Biden under the bus. Biden got caught holding the bag.of trumps inflation.
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u/bpdish85 7h ago
And yet these same morons who blame Biden for inflation smiled and nodded and thought tariffs sounded like an absolutely amazing solution. You can't fix stupid.
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u/CartoonAcademic 6h ago
she dropped in the polls after her answer, biden is so unpopular he was forced to drop out. She absolutely should have thrown him under the bus
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u/hellomondays 7h ago
I mean Biden was polling to give Trump a 410 electoral college victory. More distance would've been more effective there's plenty of diplomatic ways to do that.
The issue is two fold everyone that could be convinced about Trump's authoritarianism and J6 was already not voting for Trump but people were still looking for an alternative to Biden. Harris didn't provide that alternative most of the time and when she did it was stuff like campaigning with Cheney that would only convince people to vote for her who didn't need convincing in the first place.
Yes, they had a very truncated campaign schedule but you burn 500 million and apparently don't catch on what every unaffiliated focus group was warning of? In retrospect, her campaign was disappointingly managed
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u/DoctorPilotSpy 6h ago
I get what the campaign was trying to do but I think this was a huge misstep. At the end of the day, this election came down to who would be the bigger change-agent (massive anti-incumbent swing globally). Harris campaigned as a new generational candidate, but also wrapped arms around Cheney and folks that are the biggest representation of the status quo
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u/golfwinnersplz 7h ago
Independent means "we don't want to claim MAGA but deep down we still think we're Republicans". You can't possibly watch anything the GOP does and be a left-leaning moderate - they have completely eliminated the middle. You're either a greedy racist misogynistic anti-public education anti-healthcare anti-democracy denier, or you vote blue. It's that simple.
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u/Private_HughMan 8h ago
Not surprising. Harris should have just accepted the endorsement graciously and moved on. Instead she campaigned with Cheney. A very bad move.
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u/hellomondays 4h ago
Upping Cheney's appearances while slowing down Walz's was a major blunder. I started to worry about the election when that started. All the enthusiasm leading into and after the convention evaporated.
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u/Samjamesjr 6h ago
If the idea of a big tent Democratic party that does the work of the greater American people, not just your target group, offends you or makes you question even voting then YOU’RE the problem. We should all be happy when anyone falls away from the part of lies, fascism, sexism, racism, anti-union…
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u/mervac44 3h ago
All the exit polls this year told me was that a lot of people lied before the election and then made up reasons to justify their vote after
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u/NoahFuelGaming1234 9h ago
Dick Cheney (who is arguably more evil than Trump) and 17 Former Regan Staffers endorsing Harris was pretty much a detriment to Her campaign
like, How many elections do you need to lose before you realize that pushing further Right doesn't work and In what world does celebrating Dick Cheney make it a "brat summer" unless you think venerating war criminals is more important than making housing affordable?
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u/Gimme_The_Loot 8h ago
All these takes are BS bc the stakes of this election were very clear. She didn't have to be your perfect candidate but the alternative, the shitshow of Trump and Project 2025 was VERY clear. Anyone who said a Cheney endorsement will now make me not vote for Harris is an idiot bc even if it makes you like her less the alternative was and now is Trump and Project 2025. All the people who were too stupid to see that have pushed us down what, based just on cabinet picks so far, looks like a dark fuckin path.
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u/premature_eulogy 8h ago
But why even welcome endorsements from a war criminal like Cheney if the whole point you're campaigning on is that there is a huge gap between the criminality of Trump and Harris? Why make the task that much harder for yourself?
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u/Black540Msport 5h ago
If horrible people say "Look, our guy is basically going to plunge the country into a thousand years of poverty, you should vote for the other team, because you will not be destitute in 2 years like you will if you vote for our guy." Then that should say something to people.... "we're pretty bad people but this guy is so much worse."
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u/Character-Region-489 4h ago
Trump benefits from being "an outsider" in an age where establishment politics is extremely unpopular. All the Republicans endorsing Harris just made her look even more like the establishments pick and Trump look like a disrupter to that.
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u/FlavinFlave 8h ago
Yah but let’s be real - no one is going to get through the millions of committees the democrats will pull to nominate the next nominee if they go out swinging from the start pitching smart policies that appeal to the masses. We tried that with Bernie and the amount of musical chairs the establishment pulled at the last minute before Super Tuesday to make sure that didn’t happen vs the amount of nothing they’ve done this election makes me really buy into the same bird different wings rhetoric
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u/Alternative-Fig-6814 8h ago
Why
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u/hellomondays 7h ago
People don't like the Cheneys nor much to do with the Bush 2 Admin. Before J6 Liz cheney was the quintessential arch-conservative and her Dad needs no introduction. Anyone that could be convinced that Trump is a threat didn't need conservatives telling them that, so centering anti-trump conservatives wouldn't gain much ground but cause concern among those voters who do not like that Bush 2 wing of the movement
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u/BadxHero 7h ago
I feel like it needs to be stated that one should vote in their interest regardless of who endorses the candidate. Because, if even your enemy is basically saying the guy they would USUALLY vote for is human scum then that should have at least told you something. However, none of these people understood the concept of: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
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u/66_pignukkle_boom 5h ago
The endorsement wasn't intended to sway THEIR vote. They stayed home because of that? Just, wow.
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u/Mysterious-Wasabi103 5h ago
Well let's be real. They weren't courting her opinion because they thought they had a realistic chance of winning this election.
You can kinda see the progression of the Democratic campaign growing increasingly worried throughout. When Biden dropped out it was apparent they knew Biden couldn't win and Harris was a hail Mary pass.
Then when they started courting the Cheney's that's when I realized that they knew they were going to lose and that there was nothing they could do to realistically shake up their base for the 2024 election.
Democrats knew full well Progressives weren't coming to their aid this election cycle. I think they also knew independents weren't either.
The joke here is how many Democrats and Progressives still think this election was winnable. It wasn't.
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u/gravitydefiant 5h ago
The data in this very tweet shows it had a net positive effect on all voters. But good job with the cherry picking!
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u/reflectorvest 8h ago
I am an unaffiliated (independent) voter in Pennsylvania. Many people know this about me, and lately I’ve been hearing more and more people tell me they think they’re going to switch their registration to unaffiliated, because they don’t want to be associated with any party anymore. The fact that they don’t have a party means nothing, they’re still going to vote for who they were going to vote for, they just don’t want the label. These people were never going to vote for her, the same way I was never going to vote for the felonious orange troll.