The 2024 presidential election in the United States which pitched former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, finally arrived last Tuesday, November 5. By the time the election was called, it was not the ‘neck and neck’ result that was speculated all through the campaign. It was a landslide. Trump of the Republican Party not only ran away with a landslide victory; he left Harris and the Democrats with deep bruises.

Since July 21, 2024 when Harris, the 49th and incumbent vice president of the United States, announced her 2024 campaign for president following the withdrawal of President Joe Biden, her candidacy had drawn mixed feelings. The concerns were based on her gender, race, policies and her qualifications for the job. That President Biden had sold her nomination to the Vice Presidency as the best choice he ever made, only a part of the population felt assured that their country would be safe in her hands. But she courageously picked the baton from where Biden left off and ran a good race against her major opponent of the Republicans Party, Donald J. Trump and in the election of Tuesday, November 5, 2024, she lost spectacularly. Trump’s victory has variously been described as one of the greatest political comebacks in US history, considering the fact that he led in the electoral college as well as the popular vote for the first time. The outcome evoked the tsunami the swept the US Senate and Congress into the hands of the Republican Party. When one considers that the US Supreme Court is already populated by Justices that have sympathy for Republican ideals, one will appreciate the depth of Harris’ loss on the Democrats. The question that has been asked is, why did Harris lose so badly when, all the while, the impression was created and sustained that she was on a good home run. There are many factors and perspectives but it all boils down to what I prefer to call GRaP: gender, race and policy. There is no doubt that the deep bias against Harris was based on the fact of her gender, her African and Asian descent and the fact that she was short on plausible policies.

Chief Tony Onyima, a Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, in a postmortem on the election, offered reasons why America of today is not ready for a Madam President. According to him, the deeply disappointing outcome of the US election has “exposed the nation’s persistent biases that hold back women— particularly women of colour – from achieving the highest office.” Throwing back to 2016 when “it seemed inconceivable that a candidate as experienced as Hillary Clinton could lose to someone like Donald Trump, who lacked political expertise and showed questionable moral conduct”, the Harris defeat becomes a bitter encore. Donald Trump has become, somewhat, the nightmare for the Democratic Party in the US. He has on two major occasions-in 2016 and 2024-stood on the way of two outstanding American women – a former Secretary of State and a sitting Vice President, respectively- to breaking the gender barriers. Even with exceptional qualifications, the women fought hard and still failed to break the glass ceilings that stands between the woman and the US presidency. Close to the issue of gender, Harris’ racial roots is another factor in her loss. As a woman of colour, she was targeted by an electorate with racial and gender biases. America may have promoted a rhetoric of racial equality and equal opportunities for all, the truth, as the last election has revealed, is that the society is still clogged with racial biases especially against people of colour. The third factor that defined Vice President Harris’s campaign for the 2024 election is that her policies failed to impress, especially her vehement push for abortion rights tending more to divide than unite even the female voters. While support for abortion rights rallied a strong pro-choice base, it also led to challenges in appealing to moderate voters and some male demographics. Many voters who leaned toward Republican positions became more vocal in opposing her stance, which highlighted the nation’s deepening ideological divides and created potential difficulties in persuading undecided voters on both social and economic fronts. This stance energized her base, especially women under 40, but some critics suggested that her strong positioning on abortion overshadowed other pressing concerns like the economy and immigration, thereby complicating her efforts to broaden appeal among swing voters. It wasn’t difficult, when the chips were down, that she lost in most of the swing states. Moreover, this emphasis contributed to the largest recorded gender gap in voting preferences, a trend that limited Harris’s ability to connect with voters who prioritized issues like the economy and immigration, both of which her opponent emphasized as key areas. It will take a long time to fully make sense of what has become a major upset in US history; perhaps a longer time for the Democrats to figure out what hit them.

Since Barack Obama successfully capitalised on widespread public dissatisfaction with the Bush administration, as well as the economic crisis, which highlighted the demand for fresh leadership to win the presidency in 20118, the Democrats have found it difficult to re-enact the same conversation that will enhance their political appeal. The impact on the Democratic Party is deep and obvious. How long the party waits before it rebounds, is a question buried in time. Of more concern is how long it takes before they risk another attempt with a female presidential candidate, much more one of colour.

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