In the fall of 2023, the progressive polling outfit Data For Progress presented data to the White House showing voters were often unaware of President Joe Biden’s most popular accomplishments.
”No one was hearing about the popular things the Biden administration was doing,” said Danielle Deiseroth, the group’s executive director. “The responses we would get were all ‘well, we’re trying.’”
The failure of the White House and the Biden campaign to fix this gap played a major role in President-elect Donald Trump’s eventual victory in the 2024 election, the group concluded as part of a 45-page review of what led to Vice President Kamala Harris’ narrow loss to Trump.
A late October survey conducted by the group found, for instance, that 75% of independent voters supported raising taxes on corporations and people making over $400,000 a year, something the Biden administration accomplished as part of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. But only a mere 18% of independents believed the administration had actually done it.
Similar gaps existed for other major accomplishments, including investing in infrastructure, where just 43% of independent voters thought the administration had successfully done so. Only 39% knew the administration had expanded health care benefits.
“What is sticking out to me is going forward, Democrats can not afford to skip the annual Super Bowl interview two years in a row,” she said, noting it was only alternative media leading Democrats neglected to engage with. Biden, who is leaving office at age 82, held fewer press conferences than any of his recent predecessors.
The failure to share the administration’s message left Harris with a hole she simply could not climb out of, even if her economic message also failed to break through at times. While knowledge of Harris’ proposals to increase taxes on the wealthy did increase over the course of the race, according to Data for Progress data, relatively few voters had heard much about other proposals, including cracking down on price gouging and a much-touted policy to help caregivers.
“This is a broader condemnation of the Biden administration, and really President Biden, for failing to share a message that passed the vibe check for voters,” Deiseroth said. “Spending billions on ads in the last three months doesn’t really make up for three and a half years of not getting your message out.”
Beyond Biden’s messaging struggles, the review points to a number of textbook explanations for Harris’ loss. Voters were deeply unhappy with the economy, particularly high grocery prices, with three in four saying they were paying more for food, and a 58% majority of voters pointing to Biden as the root of “economic conditions” in the United States.
The economy was the dominant issue in the campaign. While chunks of voters pointed to abortion rights, threats to democracy or immigration as top issues, none of those issues ever came within 15 points of the economy in importance.
The Countdown To Trump Is On
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At the same time, the report also found evidence Trump worked well to cover up his weaknesses. While the Harris campaign’s heavy advertising on the topic increased the percentage of voters who believed Trump would try to pass a national abortion ban, a slender majority of voters still believed the president-elect would prefer to leave the issue to the states.
Similarly, while a 64% majority of voters said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about Project 2025 ― a right-wing manifesto Trump distanced himself from during the campaign but whose authors he has embraced since his victory ― only 44% of voters said they thought Trump supported Project 2025.
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