It’s Obvious Why Harris Lost in 2024. But Can Democrats Accept It?

The most obvious thing in politics is often the hardest to admit: If you lose an election, the best thing that you can do to make sure you win the next one is to find a message that puts you closer to the median voter than you were the last time around.

This is not the only way to win, because your message may turn out to be less important than macroeconomic conditions or a cascade of scandals or an unexpected U.F.O. invasion. But repositioning is one of the most important things that you can actually control, the clearest means of showing the public that you’ve learned from the rebuke, and the natural way to persuade a swing voter to swing the other way.

However, to move to the center is, by definition, to move in the direction of the other party, toward the hated enemy and away from your most passionate supporters. Nobody wants to do that! Which is why, in times of political defeat, there is a bottomless appetite for prescriptions that reassure the defeated party members that they just need to be truer to themselves, more effective, more ruthless. And no ambitious politician wants to be the first to throw cold water on these hopes.

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