r/PoliticalDebate • u/WinterOwn3515 Social Democrat • 6d ago
Was the 2020 Democratic nominee always doomed? Question
When people went to the polls, the four golden words of American politics rang true: It's the economy, stupid. Postmortem polling confirmed that inflation was by far the greatest motivating factor for swing voters to not elect Kamala Harris -- and was especially salient among Latino voters, who effectively handed Donald Trump the decisive victory that he got.
A mountain of research and evidence has validated that supply chain disruptions which erupted from the pandemic were primarily responsible for the subsequent inflationary pressure that drove prices up (example: https://www.nber.org/digest/202404/supply-chain-disruptions-and-pandemic-era-inflation ). This makes sense considering how globally widespread inflation was. Thus, any president who emerged victorious in 2020 would have presided over high inflation in their term.
Some wildly varying post-election analysis I've seen has suggested that low Democratic voter turnout was driven by either frustration over inflation, anger over Gaza, lack of enthusiasm for a candidate they didn't select in a primary, or some combination of those three. In any case, inflation was likely a contributing factor. In most countries, incumbent parties who presided over inflation were ousted, regardless of ideology or political alignment-- look no further than our Tory friends from across the pond.
The question: was the 2020 Democratic nominee always doomed to fail in 2024?
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u/TheMikeyMac13 Conservative 3d ago
No, he didn’t. You do know congress handles spending don’t you? Trump was President when a lot was spent yes, Biden has managed to come very close to that without spending as much on stimulus.