How Kamala Harris’ failed 2024 presidential run mirrors her ill-fated 2020 campaign
Vice President Harris‘ second failed presidential bid mirrors aspects of her first trek on the campaign trail in 2019, proving to be short-lived and unfocused on key issues important to American voters, experts say. “Both started with great promise,” Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and former senior official in the George W. Bush administration, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “There’s the sense that she’s the savior of the new flavor, the next generation for Democrats, and both kind of failed spectacularly,” he said. HARRIS NOW THE SECOND DEM CANDIDATE TO LOSE TO TRUMP AND NOT SPEAK TO SUPPORTERS ON ELECTION NIGHT In December 2019, then-Sen. Harris suspended her bid for the presidency 11 months after entering the race, citing a lack of campaign funds and a lag in the polls. It wasn’t long before staffers exposed the disarray in her campaign. But before she was one of the more prominent early dropouts among the field of Democrat contenders, Harris’ campaign started off with significant momentum, marked by her strong launch that drew a large crowd in Oakland, California. She was initially seen as a top-tier candidate. However, as the campaign progressed, her campaign’s messaging became unclear and faced tough opposition from then-candidate Joe Biden as well as Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders. HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS ELECTION RESULTS “Both [campaigns] ran aground on the same two things. No. 1 is her inability to communicate even the most simple idea to the American people. And it’s not because she’s not intellectually capable of doing it, it’s because she is in a box,” Troy said of Harris. “She’s trapped,” he added. “On the one hand, her inclinations and her voters are on the left, and on the other hand, she wants to win the general election, and to appeal to people in the general election, she has to renounce the more woke policies that she’s espoused throughout her life.” But to do that, Troy said, would cost her excited progressive big donors. Harris became the Democrat frontrunner after President Biden suspended his bid for re-election in July amid reports of his declining mental acuity in the wake of a poor debate performance against Republican former President Trump in June. Biden quickly endorsed Harris, who made “reproductive rights” a top issue on the campaign trail, a strategy that would ultimately not win over enough swing state voters. Harris was the Democrat nominee for only about four months. “I don’t think voters felt like abortion rights were at risk,” another GOP strategist told Fox News Digital. “They largely agreed that the voters should decide, which was President Trump’s message that it should be sent to the states for voters themselves to decide.” “I think our biggest strength was Kamala’s own words that she had so many far-left San Francisco liberal policy proposals that were all explained by her on camera during the 2020 campaign that we were able to deploy really effectively and target into districts where people have really negative views of those,” the Republican expert said. And voters may have wanted more substance from Harris when it comes to the economy and the border. Preliminary data from the Fox News Voter Analysis, a survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, provides an early look at the mood of voters as they cast their ballots. Voters say the economy is far and away the top issue facing the country, followed distantly by immigration and abortion. In a sign of inflation’s economic toll, roughly three times as many voters feel they were falling behind financially as those who feel they were getting ahead. DEMOCRAT ADAM SCHIFF WINS DIANNE FEINSTEIN’S FORMER SENATE SEAT Harris also faced the challenge of decoupling herself from Biden but otherwise ran an “expertly run campaign,” according to Philadelphia-based Democrat strategist Mustafa Rashed. “It was going to be hard to distance herself from the sitting president; she couldn’t use him as a surrogate because he was just not an effective surrogate,” Rashed told Fox News Digital. “He’s not great on the campaign trail, and he’s not popular enough to outweigh the downsides of having him as your partner.” Harris conceded to Trump over the phone on Wednesday morning after he clinched a majority of the electoral vote overnight. She gave her concession speech later in the day at her alma mater, Howard University. “The outcome of this election is not what we hoped, not what we fought, not what we voted for,” Harris said. “But hear when I say … the light of America’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub. Fox News Digital’s Polling Unit contributed to this report.
How Harris was dogged by ‘border czar’ label, past radical immigration views during failed campaign
Vice President Kamala Harris came into the presidential race with immigration and border security as top issues for voters, but struggled to gain momentum on the issue given her radical past policies as a California senator and her role in the Biden administration’s failure to control the crisis at the southern border. The Fox News Voter Analysis found that 52% of voters said President-elect Donald Trump was the better candidate to handle immigration, while just 36% said Harris. Meanwhile, it was one of the top issues for voters, with 20% saying it was the most important issue facing the country, behind only the economy and jobs (39%) and ahead of abortion (11%) and climate change (7%) ‘LIBERATION DAY’: WHAT TO EXPECT FROM PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP ON BORDER SECURITY, IMMIGRATION The roots of Harris’ troubles on immigration began in 2021, when the Biden-Harris administration rolled back Trump-era policies including border wall construction and the Remain-in-Mexico policy and aimed to place a moratorium on deportations. That was followed by a dramatic and historic surge at the border which overwhelmed Border Patrol agents and broke records for encounters, leading to chaos throughout the country as migrants poured in. The Biden administration said it was dealing with a “broken” system and congressional inaction, proposing a sweeping immigration bill that included a mass amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, but Republicans and others tied the surge to the policies of the administration,. As those numbers took off, President Biden in March 2021 tasked Harris with leading diplomacy to countries south of the border to tackle what they saw as the root causes of migration — including climate change, violence and poverty. Crucially, it led her to be dubbed the “border czar” by critics and media outlets, although the White House rejected that moniker. Despite the limits on that role, it made her a figurehead of the spiraling crisis, and she immediately faced pressure to visit the southern border. She visited Mexico and Guatemala but initially shrugged off calls to visit the border. “You haven’t been to the border,” NBC’s Lester Holt told her, after she claimed she had been to the border. “And I haven’t been to Europe,” Harris quipped. WHY NOW? MEDIA OUTLETS LARGELY QUIET ON TIMING OF SUDDEN CRACKDOWN OF KAMALA HARRIS ‘BORDER CZAR’ LABEL She eventually visited El Paso, Texas, but the controversy stuck, and Republicans would regularly mention the “border czar” when attacking the administration’s policies. Reports also emerged that she was dissatisfied with the assignment. In that role, she would go on to raise more than $5.2 billion committed since May 2021 from over 50 companies and organizations to tackle root causes, but the ongoing crisis, which didn’t slow down until 2024, took the spotlight. This year, she and the administration threw their weight behind a bipartisan border security bill that was introduced in the Senate in January. That bill, which failed to pick up enough support to pass the chamber, would have provided additional funding to the border, including for thousands of additional personnel. It also included an emergency authority to allow officials to shut down entries at the southern border when they reach a certain level — but conservatives say it would solidify high levels of illegal immigration. But Trump’s opposition to the bill allowed Harris to accuse Trump of torpedoing the bill for political purposes. LIVE BLOG: DONALD TRUMP ELECTED AS THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES “Donald Trump learned about that bill and told them to kill it because he preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem,” she said. She also noted a recent drop in border crossings since June after President Biden signed a proclamation limiting asylum entries into the U.S. “[Trump] can make up whatever lies he wants, but the fact is there’s only one candidate in this race who will fight for real solutions to help secure our nation’s border, and that’s Vice President Harris,” her campaign said. As a presidential candidate, she also emphasized her past as an attorney general going after transnational criminal organizations “that smuggled guns, drugs, and human beings across the U.S.-Mexico border.” But she was also hit by her past statements made during her time as a California senator and a presidential candidate in the 2020 election cycle. Her support for gender transition surgery to detained migrants hit headlines and was used as a weapon against her by Republicans. CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS She would also move away from past statements in which she called for the decriminalization of illegal border crossings and for the closing of immigration detention centers. She had also mulled ICE starting again “from scratch.” A Harris campaign adviser told Fox that her positions have been “shaped by three years of effective governance as part of the Biden-Harris administration.” Ultimately, though, it was not enough to help her overcome her deficit on the issue over Trump, who on Wednesday reiterated his calls to secure the border. He has pledged to resume wall construction and launch a mass deportation operation, while ending a number of Biden-era policies when he enters office in January 2025.
President Trump and Grover Cleveland: How presidential candidates triumphantly returned to the White House
President-elect Donald Trump succeeded early in the morning on Wednesday, and defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race for the White House. Trump will take office for a second time in January. The only other presidential candidate in history to win the presidency non-consecutively was Grover Cleveland, who was elected as the 22nd and 24th U.S. president. FAITH LEADERS REACT TO TRUMP RE-ELECTION: ‘GOD SPARED MY LIFE FOR A REASON Cleveland, born into a large family as one of nine children in New Jersey, according to WhiteHouse.gov., was raised in New York. The former president studied law and became a lawyer before taking public office as mayor of Buffalo in 1881, according to WhiteHouse.gov. Cleveland became the Democrat U.S. presidential candidate in 1884, while he was serving as the governor of New York. He was the first Democrat elected president after the Civil War, defeating his Republican opponent, Sen. James G. Blaine of Maine. During his first term in office, he faced criticism for his veto of private pension bills for Civil War veterans, according to NPR. TRUMP’S PROJECTED VICTORY DOESN’T GO OVER WELL WITH LIBERAL MEDIA: ‘I’M GONNA THROW UP’ Also during his first term, a proposed bill to provide Texas farmers with $10,000 in federal funds to be used for seed grain was brought to the floor, which he vetoed, according to the New York Post. Cleveland called for Congress to reduce high protective tariffs from the Civil War, according to the Associated Press, and signed the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, which established federal regulation of an industry for the first time through its regulation of railroads, according to NPR. During his first term in office, Frances Folsom, who was 21 at the time, became the first lady with her marriage to Cleveland. To this day, Cleveland is the only president to be married inside the White House. HERE’S HOW VP-ELECT JD VANCE’S SENATE SEAT WILL BE FILLED Four years after becoming president, Cleveland was up for re-election. He campaigned against Republican Benjamin Harrison but was unsuccessful in his bid to return to the White House. Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to his Republican opponent. “He began the race without a campaign manager; delegated most of the electioneering responsibilities to his running mate, Allen Thurman, who, at the age of 74, was not healthy enough to withstand the rigors of campaigning; and based the entire race around his proposal to reduce tariffs, which divided his own Democratic Party and unified the Republicans in opposition,” presidential historian Troy Senik told History.com. In 1892, there was a rematch between Cleveland and Harrison, and Cleveland came out victorious, making him the first to return to the White House for a non-consecutive term. TRUMP WHITE HOUSE VICTORY CALLED ‘THE GREATEST POLITICAL COMEBACK IN AMERICAN HISTORY’ Cleveland was the only president to hold this distinction until Trump accomplished a similar feat. Trump was first elected as president in 2016, when he beat his Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote to win the presidential race. Trump’s success stems from a background in business as a real estate developer, rather than politics. In July 2016, Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president, was elected on Nov. 8, 2016, and was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017. His first term in office included policies like tax cuts, energy independence, military expansion, improved health care for veterans and security of the southern border. PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP’S VICTORY SENDS HOLLYWOOD INTO TAILSPIN Also during his first term, Trump appointed federal judges, including three U.S. Supreme Court judges, and signed legislation to create the Space Force, the first new armed service since 1947, according to the U.S. Department of Defense’s website. In 2020, Trump faced Democrat challenger Joe Biden for the White House and lost the election. After years removed from the presidency, Trump began a campaign for re-election. He announced his third run for office in the days after the 2022 midterm elections and began two more years of campaigning. Initially, Trump and Biden were campaigning against one another again. However, in July 2024, now-President Biden announced an end to his re-election bid and endorsed his vice president, Harris, as the Democrat nominee. Trump defeated Harris in the 2024 presidential election, becoming president-elect. Trump is now the 45th and 47th U.S. president. “I want to thank you all very much,” Trump said in an address to the American people during the early morning hours Wednesday, after the results of Election Day. “This is great. These are our friends. We have thousands of friends in this incredible movement. This is a movement like nobody’s ever seen before; I believe the greatest political movement of all time.” “I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected the 47th president,” Trump continued. “And every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and your future. Every single day, I will be fighting for you. And with every breath in my body, I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve.”
‘They reaffirmed their commitment…’: MEA details PM Modi and US President-elect Trump’s telephonic conversation
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JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, set to become first Indian American second lady
The White House is ushering in a new era with the election of a second Trump presidency with Usha Vance set to become the first Indian American second lady in the White House. Vance, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, will also be the first Hindu second lady. Vice President-elect JD Vance credited his “beautiful wife for making it possible to do this” after the big win. “THANK YOU! To my beautiful wife for making it possible to do this,” he wrote on X. “To President Donald J. Trump, for giving me such an opportunity to serve our country at this level. And to the American people, for their trust. I will never stop fighting for ALL of you.” WHO IS JD’S WIFE USHA VANCE? The attorney has been married to JD since 2014 and they have three children together: sons, Ewan, 6, and Vivek, 4, and a daughter, Mirabel, 2. Before law school, Vance received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale and a master’s in philosophy from the University of Cambridge. USHA VANCE REVEALS HOW SHE DEALS WITH NEGATIVE PRESS COVERAGE OF HER HUSBAND She completed multiple clerkships after her graduation from Yale, according to an Axios report, including for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Vance made headlines during the Republican National Committee in July. “My background is very different from JD’s. I grew up in San Diego, in a middle-class community, with two loving parents, both immigrants from India, and a wonderful sister,” she said. “That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country.” Fox News’ Yael Horan contributed to this report.