J. Pharoah Doss: No great surprise Harris lost

Two days before the 2024 presidential election, an ABC/Ipsos survey found Democratic nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of Republican challenger and former President Donald Trump by three percentage points. On Election Day, Harris supporters were confident the vice president would defeat the former president because he was impeached twice and charged with several felonies after losing the oval office to Joe Biden in 2020. When it became clear that Harris would lose the election, ardent Harris supporters wept in disbelief. Trump not only won the electoral college but he became the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years, which surprised pollsters. After Harris conceded, political analysts concluded that the key reason for Harris’ defeat was her failure to successfully separate herself from President Biden. Hillary Clinton explained in “What Happened,” her book detailing how she lost the presidency to Trump in 2016, that revolts tend to start not in places where conditions are worst but in places where expectations are the most unmet.& 54 percent of Americans disapproved of President Biden’s policies, a clear indication that Biden fell short of many expectations. When asked what she would do differently than Biden in terms of...