Why Kamala lost: A confession

I have a post all teed up about Why Kamala Lost, but I can't quite pull the trigger on publishing it. Here's why:

This is not the Democratic (popular vote) winning margin each year. It's the change from the previous election. For example, Joe Biden won by 4.5% in 2020 and Kamala Harris lost by 1.5% in 2024. That's a change of -6.0%.

The House vote barely changed at all in 2024. In 2022 Democrats lost by 2.7%. This year they lost by 3.0%.

These are just not world historical changes, especially in a weird election that featured a global mutiny against incumbents and a JV candidate hastily subbed in three months before Election Day.

In other words, there may not be an awful lot to explain. Maybe Democratic losses were just the result of a routine pendulum swing and the breast beating over causes is overwrought.

I do think there are some lessons for Democrats in this year's election, and I may yet write about them. But at this point I feel like every theory should be treated as highly provisional. Election results bounce around all the time, and this year's bounce wasn't wildly out of the ordinary. Maybe it really was just the price of eggs.