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Political scientists aren’t like the ones in a lab, separating compounds over a Bunsen burner. Elections aren’t like that anyway; instead, they’re often an overheated mixture of media, cultural, sociological, economic and of course political elements combining to determine a democratic (and at times dramatic) outcome.
While this compound’s elements exist in relation to each other, some seemed particularly powerful in the presidential election, according to three political scientists who are directors of their respective centers and proverbial deans of interpreting political trends and traditions: Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a Minnesota native who is the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania; Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota; and Natalie Jomini Stroud, director of the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas.
While ballots presented presidential running mates Donald Trump and JD Vance vs. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, there was another unwritten name on the Democratic ticket: President Joe Biden. And Harris was “cemented” to him, Jacobs said, adding: “The expectation when she stepped in was ‘Oh, this is a fresh start.’ And it wasn’t. She was really seen as the extension of Joe Biden and that administration.”
And while that administration may be admired by historians who take the long view of a president nursing the country and economy out of COVID critical care to become “The Envy of the World,” as a recent Economist magazine cover claimed, it is not popular with everyday Americans. For several reasons, but polls mostly point to rising prices confronting consumers daily, with $6 boxes of cereal a serial reminder of the worst inflation since higher prices lowered approval ratings and political prospects for Jimmy Carter and before him Jerry Ford, whose WIN (“Whip Inflation Now”) buttons didn’t prevent a loss in the 1976 election.
“Inflation is the development that makes everyone poorer,” said Jacobs. It “feels like you’re being suffocated in terms of your family budget and no amount of deft rhetoric can overcome that.”
Biden indeed tried talking about the broader economic context. So did Harris. And after that, Jacobs said, “Democrats tried the most radical response we’ve seen in our history, which is get rid of Joe Biden, bring in a new candidate, and none of that worked — not the speech, not the new candidate.” The Democrats were the “in-party,” Jacobs said, and with the economy in general and inflation in particular voters’ top issue, voters made them the out-party.