The blame game among Democrats for Kamala Harris‘ crushing defeat on Tuesday night has been ferocious and questions have persisted.
Was she the right candidate? Should President Joe Biden have dropped out sooner? Did the out-of-touch Democrats not do enough to hold onto working class voters who have supported them for decades?
Nancy Pelosi twisted the knife on Friday by saying the party she has led for years should have had more time to consider its options outside of the vice president.
But an issue that has left many on the left bewildered is how on earth the Harris campaign failed when it spent up to $1 billion filling TV and cell phone screens with messaging.
The finger pointing will continue until the campaign for the next presidential election in 2028 begins again.
But despite all the allegations it could have been just two words that did the most damage to Harris’ chances of being president: ‘They’ and ‘them’.
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton has been one of the only voices in his party to speak out against the liberal stance on transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports.
Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks conceding 2024 U.S. presidential election to President-elect Donald Trump
As such he has faced calls to resign, but told The New York Times he stands firmly in his beliefs, citing the fact he is a father of two daughters. ‘
‘Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,’ he said. ‘I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.’
As a result his top aide Matt Chilliak quit and Moulton has been panned by Democrats and LGBTQ groups.
It is at the heart of an issue that many argue led to Harris’ downfall.
Donald Trump’s team rolled out an advert about Harris’ stance on transgender rights shortly after Biden made his dramatic decision not to run.
It focused on a comment the vice president made in 2019, when she inferred that she would support transgender inmates getting taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries.
The attack ad worked well on both an economic and social level with the slogan: ‘Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you.’
While Harris and her allies were comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler – and saying he would focus on revenge in his second term – it was this ad that seemed to resonate most with voters.
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton has been one of the only voices in his party to speak out against the liberal stance on transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports
Donald Trump’s campaign ran adverts highlighting his opponent’s record on transgender issues
DailyMail.com’s pollster J.L. Partners, who predicted Trump’s historic victory, surveyed 1,000 voters a week before the election.
‘When the ads turned to character, Donald Trump was the beneficiary. That is when we saw Trump’s vote go up — as opposed to when the Harris campaign focused on the issues, including abortion,’ James Johnson, J.L. Partners founder told DailyMail.com.
‘Focus groups suggested that Harris overreached with independents on her Hitler comment and galvanized Trump’s base further. And she also invited attacks on her own flank, especially on transgender issues,’ he added.
Brian Burch, President of CatholicVote, added: ‘Protecting children from the dangerous transgender industry played a key role in Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris.
‘Both CatholicVote and the Trump campaign spent heavily to highlight the extremism of Harris, including her aggressive support of exploitative transgender medicines and surgeries paid for by American families.’
Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, finishes the 200 yard Freestyle for the University of Pennsylvania at an Ivy League swim meet against Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 22, 2022.
He added: ‘Traditional medical ethics, scientific studies, and now even left-wing pundits have acknowledged that these experiments pose grave risks to children and are deeply unpopular.
‘Why Kamala Harris chose to embrace this issue remains one of the more puzzling elements of her flawed campaign.’
J.L. Partners asked about the ads from both campaigns, and which were more common in the final days of the campaign.
In the exhaustive questionnaire, 31 percent of all Americans said they had seen a political advert.
In the seven swing states, the primary targets of each campaign, this number went up to 49 percent.
Of those who had been exposed to a political ad, 66 percent said they had seen one from Kamala Harris compared to 58 percent who had seen one from the Trump campaign.
Donald Trump won the election after running adverts on Kamala Harris’ character
Ads about Trump’s character from the vice president’s side were the most seen at 31 percent, quickly followed by abortion with 18 percent.
Just under three in 10 (28 percent) saw a Trump-backed commercial attacking Harris’ character while 20 percent were about the border – one of the primary themes of the Republican’s third White House run.
But one of the most talked-about ads from the Trump campaign zeroed in on Harris and transgender rights.
It featured 2019 footage of Harris saying she she supported taxpayer-funded surgery for transgender inmates.
Transgender rights have risen to prominence in political discourse in recent years.
Trump frequently said on the campaign trail that he would ban ‘biological males’ playing in women’s sports.
upporters react while another takes a selfie as Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks, conceding the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
In 2024, data from AdImpact revealed that $123 million had been spent on ads centered on transgender athletes.
AP VoteCast data published in the aftermath of the election that collated voter attitudes suggested the messaging was successful.
Gallup polls between 2021 and 2023 showed that Republican opposition to transgender athletes playing on a team that matched their gender identity had already spiked from 86 percent to 93 percent.
Harris was asked about her position, and her past policy, during a NBC interview in October in the final stages of the campaign.
She dodged the question and said the issue should be left to doctors.
‘I believe we should follow the law,’ Harris began during an interview with Hallie Jackson.
Jackson interrupted Harris to note that Trump was ‘trying to define’ her with the issue, and was spending millions of dollars of ads against her on it.
‘I’m asking you to define yourself,’ Jackson responded.
Kamala Harris being interviewed on NBC by Hallie Jackson
Harris said: ‘That is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary. I’m not going to put myself in the position of a doctor.’
She dismissed the line of questioning as a ‘distraction’ and went on to highlight Trump’s more dramatic proposals for the country.
The Trump campaign bombarded households across the country with its ad.
‘Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you,’ the ads conclude.
The vice president also dodged a similar question from Fox News anchor Bret Baier when asked if she still supports taxpayer funded surgeries for illegal immigrants.
