In a recent column for the Union-Leader, former New Hampshire Democrat state party chair Kathy Sullivan made a profound confession.
“I am not going to try to figure out why Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump.”
Based on the behavior of her party’s leadership, she’s not alone. Granite State Democrats appear determined not to learn anything from their 2024 election defeat.
Starting with admitting that they were defeated.
In her column, Sullivan instead goes full “Monty Python Black Knight,” dismissing the election results with a “’tis but a flesh wound.”
As she wrote, “While Ayotte won, Joyce Craig received a larger vote than any other Democratic gubernatorial candidate since Maggie Hassan’s blue wave win in 2012.”
(Spoiler alert: Craig also lost to Republican Kelly Ayotte by nearly 10 points.)
National Democrats are doing similar tricks with math, celebrating the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris won the second-highest number of votes by any Democrat, ever.
Then again, what else to expect from a candidate who ran a “flawless campaign.” Well, except for that “losing the election” part.
Not just losing, but the first Democrat to lose the popular vote to a non-incumbent Republican president since 1988.
In Washington, DNC leaders are determined not to hold Harris or her policies responsible for her loss to the most unpopular political figure in modern American history. In New Hampshire, Democrats are just as adamant that there is nothing wrong with their ideas; it’s just dirty GOP campaigning and bad luck.
Democrats weren’t wrong to dump trillions of dollars onto a red-hot economy, driving inflation up to Carter-era levels. Not at all — it was those dumb voters who didn’t understand how great Bidenomics really is.
The Afghanistan withdrawal? Biden called it an “extraordinary success,” and no Democrats are publicly suggesting that his verdict should be reconsidered. And they absolutely reject the common-sense observation that Putin’s aggression against Ukraine and Iran’s increased attacks on Israel were encouraged by Biden’s projection of American weakness.
Then there’s immigration. People not smart enough to write erudite columns for The New Yorker might look at the four-year fiasco along the southern border, see the surge in political support for deportations — including mass deportations — and conclude Democrats need to moderate.
Not a chance. Instead, elected Democrats from California to Colorado to Cambridge, Mass. are rushing to the nearest camera to declare that they will do everything they can to stop federal immigration agents from deporting criminal immigrants.
The Democrats who run Natick, Mass. are about to join the ranks of “sanctuary cities.” In Denver, Democrat Mayor Mike Johnston is on TV threatening to use his police to “keep them [federal immigration officers] out.” And, he added, “You would have 50,000 Denverites there. It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right?”
Do Democrats not understand how extremist actions like those impact the average voter? Polls are clear: A majority of Americans want more illegal immigrants deported. They hated what happened during the Biden years, hated it so much they were willing to reconsider their opposition to Trump.
Are New Hampshire Democrats really going to vote in lockstep against sanctuary city policies again next year?
But the most obvious example is Democrats’ support for allowing males who identify as females to play on girls sports teams and shower in their locker rooms.
As with immigration, there’s no mystery about the politics. Depending how how the question is asked, New Hampshire voters oppose treating biological males like biological females by at least a five to one margin.
There is plenty of data showing that the most effective ad run by Team Trump was a video of Harris bragging about getting a taxpayer-funded sex change operation for an illegal immigrant in prison. The Trump tag line, “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you,” was devastating.
Unless you ask a Democrat. Despite polling and focus groups showing typical, working-class voters found Harris’ stance so extreme as to be nearly unbelievable, national Democrats continue to insist their policies aren’t a problem.
The Washington Examiner reports U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) said he and his fellow Democratic candidates never heard about Trump’s ad “anywhere on the campaign trail.” He also argued that blaming Democratic support for these transgender policies was “the ultimate misdirection.”
Whatever you say…
There is nothing that will make Republicans more happy or hopeful about the 2026 midterms than if Democrats follow the advice of Kathy Sullivan and MSNBC. Even better for the GOP will be if Democrats in Concord and the U.S. Capitol keep voting for policies overwhelmingly opposed by most voters.
Here’s what really happened on Nov. 5:
The same New Hampshire voters who gave Biden a big 7.5 percent win nearly flipped the state to Donald Trump. There was a net swing to Trump of more than 35,000, even after his scandalous behavior on Jan. 6, 2021, and his support for the U.S. Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade. Harris had more money, a post-convention surge, and a swooning press.
And she still lost.
The first rule of holes? Stop digging. But for Democrats, it’s just shovels all the way down.
