– By Dr Manoranjan Sharma and Dr Brajesh C Choudhary

Most pollsters and election watchers had forecasted a close Presidential tussle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris holding that it was “too close to call” and some even terming the bitterly fought election as “a dead heat”. We, however, did not hedge our bets and unequivocally maintained that “aab ki baar Trump sarkar”, i.e., Donald Trump is likely to win. These views about the certainty of Trump’s victory were shared with a large section of the Indian Press in the evening of November 5, 2024, at a time when the elections were still on in the USA and were prominently featured in several leading publications. Hence this is not a case of looking at things in hindsight or being wiser after the event. Hence, no surprise there, not for us anyway.

Now that the US electoral process is done and dusted, let us not be swayed by whimsical considerations. Let us look at Trump’s smashing victory dispassionately in an objective manner. Why did Kamala Harris lose not just swing states but also blue states long held to be Democratic strongholds? As William Shakespeare wrote powerfully in his play Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.

At the outset, let us say that Kamala Harris started with a distinct disadvantage, a kind of “original sin” in the sense, as poignantly pointed out by David Axelrod, the master strategist behind both of Barack Obama’s Presidential wins, “No incumbent party has ever won with a president with a 40% approval rating or under”. Axelrod also went on to say “No party has won with people’s attitudes about the economy what they were.”

Perceptions differ, assessments vary but she had it coming. Let us attempt to identify and isolate some of the basic reasons for her clear loss. An election is seldom won or lost on a solitary issue but the forces and........

© The Financial Express