So apparently that autopsy I thought was an autopsy from a few months back wasnt the real autopsy, that was released today after pressure from the democratic party. It's a dumpster fire, but not in the way you'd expect. See the dems weren't hiding it because there were damning lessons in it they didn't want to learn, they were hiding it because it reads like an incomplete work that some intern put together. Seriously, who wrote this?! Fire this person, please. It kinda reminds me of my incomplete book drafts. Actually, that's an insult to my drafts, my drafts are better than this. There's no sources, many sections are missing, and it reads like a college paper a professor had to whip out the red pen and correct, and yeah there's literally red disclaimers everywhere saying there's no citations for data and that this doesn't represent the views of the DNC.
As for the content itself, eh...a lot of it was long and dry for my tastes, it is 200 pages, and it lacks summaries and conclusions because, well, again, it's very obviously incomplete. However, this also hurts readability since my eyes glaze over trying to read this mess, and i cant even go to the summary and be like "oh ok." To be fair as a writer, I kinda get the thought process. My drafts do the same thing, but again, I plan on FIXING that later. This is very obviously incomplete.
From what I've gathered, they seem to take away SOME decent lessons, like less focus on social issues, more on economics, as well as the idea that they need to try to appeal to voters everywhere rather than doing whatever minmaxing crap they've been doing. So it's not entirely worthless IMO.
Still...the fact that this became an issue really should highlight an issue the dems have. The reason the dems were pressured to release this is because wide swaths of their voters dont trust them. They thought that they were quashing it because the dems are arrogant and often dont WANT TO learn the right lessons. So rather than take away damning lessons to be learned, people thought they were just deflecting and ignoring the fact that they sucked and need to change.
Which is...admittedly, the dems biggest issue. The fact is, they don't seem open minded or WILLING to learn from their mistakes. They seem like the kind of party who will ignore all lessons and just keep repeating the same strategy while blaming the voters for not turning up for them. If information came out that was unflattering, it seems very well within their character to ignore it and say "let's move on, shall we? no point dwelling on the past" while the base is like NO, YOU NEED TO LEARN THIS LESSON!
I mean, if there's anything that should be gleaned from this whole mess, it's THAT. The dems are slow to learn, never actually learn the right lessons, and seem to ignore what people tell them. Hell, and this was a problem with the autopsy itself, dems are so washington brained that they cant stfu about their strategy for more than 5 seconds when talking to voters. When voters tell them what they want, they say "no you see you stupid person, you don't get it" and then go on about their grand plan of how we need to be a big tent, run to the center, and how we can't do the things the voters are asking for because they gotta appeal to completely different voters who might not even vote for them anyway. It's very arrogant and very out of touch.
And yeah, they do have an issue with minmaxing demographics. They seem to not care at all about white male voters for instance while they'll hugbox themselves to death going on about black voters from safe red states that will NEVER, EVER go blue this election cycle.
With that said, the autopsy seems to emphasize a strategy that attempts to win all voters everywhere, but I still have reservations. yeah, they need to stop ignoring voters who ARE open to voting for them, but in our electoral college system, you need to split states into groups and focus accordingly. Look at my election predictions. I have safe blue and safe red. Likely blue and likely red. Lean blue and lean red. And then the tossups. This translates to around 7 categories of states. Safes are...safe. You arent gonna lose them, you arent gonna flip them. On the other hand, tossups are your big states to focus on. In 2024, there were 7 of them. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, going from left to right vaguely. Lean blues like Virginia, Minnesota, and New Hampshire were in some danger of flipping, but they generally didn't. The dems had to keep an eye on them, but ultimately, they need less attention than the swings. You dont wanna neglect them, as that's what Clinton did in 2016, but you also dont wanna focus too heavily on them unless you already got a safeish electoral margin (kinda like clinton did in 2016, assuming the blue wall held). On the other hand, and this is a 2016 thing, I'd advise again spending too much time in say, lean R states. it's good to go after them, but you shouldnt abandon your core constituents to win them over. And of course, likely states are tougher to flip than leans, but more on the table than safe/solid states.
So...when you look at an election prediction, you gotta look at the polling in the various states and focus your attention on your best and easiest path to 270 and expand from there. If you're like Clinton in 2016, you wanna focus on defense. You have the advantage, you wanna not lose states (like she did), and yeah, compete mostly in lean D and tossups.
Really, the thing that pissed everyone off about 2016 was that she had a map made in heaven, it took a lot of work to actually lose it, and she lost. She lost most swing states, outside of new hampshire and nevada, and then trump was able to poach states from her back yard because she was too busy F-ing up her political strategy by going down to like, Georgia and Arizona. 2016 was lost my hubris, and I honestly think that the core problems of the democratic party are apparent today.
But yeah, dems have a habit of trying to appeal to people in places they'll never win. Like, again, for all the talk of "OMG THE BLACK VOTE!" Which states will almost never flip to the dems here? South Carolina, where Clyburn is from. Mississippi, Alabama, etc. At this point I'll concede Georgia. 2016, i wouldnt. It was still very likely R back then, but yeah. It's like the dems are obsessed with winning the south when...as you can tell by this map, that's the bible belt, and we shouldnt compromise our message elsewhere trying to flip states we'll never flip.
At the same time, take pennsylvania, which is very blue here but clinton lost anyway. She had this strategy of "for every working class voter we lose, we'll pick up two moderate republican", so she went all in with pittburgh and philly suburbs, neglecting all of those little islands of blue in between, and rural voters in general. The autopsy points that out.
But enough with 2016, let's focus on how this applied to 2024.
So this is the final map on election day. I could post other maps that are a lot redder of where things were under Biden, but this is where things generally were under Harris. 226 relatively safe dem electoral votes (although under Biden many of those "lean dem" states were on the verge of flipping red, with VA actually being red when Biden flipped out). Again, if you're losing and at risk of losing your next line of states after the swing states, you're kinda screwed and you do gotta play some defense to keep them blue. But you also need the actual swing states. Quickest path: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. The old 2016 rust belt strategy still applied. And those, along with nevada, were the most likely to flip. If the dems could maintain the rust belt and arguably nevada, which was very doable in theory, Harris would've won 276-262.
From there, you wanna focus on the more lean R swing states in the sun belt. North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona. Not NECESSARY to win, but within reach enough to be "on the table". So yeah, similar map to 2016 more or less as far as the fundamentals go. I'd expect 2028 to be the same, although 2032 and onward are likely to have some reapportionments that favor republicans (lots of growth in texas and florida). But still, for now, they need to focus on defending their home turf and winning back the rust belt. We can focus on where to go post 2030, I feel like the dems were trying too hard to flip the map as if it were 2032 going as far back as 2016 and it seemed to just be an ill advised strategy. It's not working. And yeah.
Like...really. That's a key problem the dems have had since 2016. They are trying too hard to prepare for a future 10-20 years down the line instead of winning elections now, and their core strategy has been, IMO, incongruent with what actual voters want. And rather than listen to those voters, they lecture them and talk about winning the south like...that's the big thing they need to do.
They ignore voters like me in the rust belt, who actually are giving them advice for winning the states that are part of their most obvious path to victory, to focus on states that they currently DONT need.
Yes, post 2030, the rust belt alone is not gonna be sufficient to win elections:
However, if they kept trying to keep Ohio and Iowa, which were states that went for Obama twice, and used to be a lot more competitive pre Trump, it's very well possible we STILL wouldn't have needed to compete down south. Once again, the "neglect the rust belt in favor of the sun belt" strategy has always been a poor one in my own estimation. perhaps they were gonna lose those states anyway and they knew it, but still, at 261, you dont need a whole lot to continue winning here, the dems, if anything, had an advantage, going back to the Obama era, if they chose to maintain and strengthen that coalition, and didnt give trump such an obvious in to electoral relevance:
Really, this is a pretty reasonable Obama era style map. The whole strategy the dems decided to pursue, to abandon parts of the rust belt to focus on suburbanites and to win the south, has ALWAYS been ill advised. We dont NEED the south. We never did. We just needed to maintain a stronghold along the blue wall and nevada. And the blue wall used to include ohio and iowa too. Remember: Obama won BOTH OF THOSE, TWICE. This is just an Obama map except we lost florida.
Now, again, we've unfortunately been getting the "cursed realignment" in the 7th party system where Trump is gaining ground in a lot of previously blue obama era states like FLorida, and Ohio, and Iowa, which are now all likely to safe R, and we ARE being forced to compete in the sun belt more.
Still...I do think we have one trip up our sleeve, and yes, it is a sun belt state, and that's georgia:
See, here's the thing. The sun belt is eventually going to flip more D anyway over time, mostly due to demographic changes. We could have easily maintained the Obama strategy well to 2028, and afterward, tried to make more of a pass down south, where demographic shifts brings the voters to us. I honestly dont think that we have to go down there and bring ourselves to them. I think they would eventually come to us, by 2032, 2036, 2040, etc. Georgia in particular has been shifting left at a fast pace where it's soon gonna vote to the left of Pennsylvania. In 2024, it was one of the few states that went further left despite the rest of the country moving hard right. I dont think the sun belt strategy has been working well otherwise. Texas is a tease, although in theory it's moving left as well. Like, in 2026, James Talarico might actually win here. But in 2024...it went R+13, the same as Ohio and Iowa, ya know, states we lost ground in. Arizona isn't as stubborn as texas, it has mark kelly there, and Biden won it in 2020, but it does require a centrist strategy that tends to flip more up north IMO. North Carolina might be more D friendly in the future too. It's been stubbornly red in recent elections, but Obama won it in 2008 and it looks like we will probably win the senate this year.
So yeah, post 2030, we can appeal to the sun belt somewhat, but I still believe we need to keep the rust belt happy. They're still very relevant deciding states and I think they'll remain easier for democrats to flip than southern states. At this point, yeah, do both, but I still favor a rust belt strategy, and IMO, what wins the rust belt is economic populism and appealing to a broad base of people, not minmaxing. The dems try TOO HARD to win the south that they lose the north. They need to maintain their focus up north, while making passes at the south as the demographics force them to both expand down there, but also, as those same demographics...bring them to us.
The dems have this idea that we need to run to the center to win elections. Even when data supports that assertion, the difference between a leftie and centrist candidate is only like 3 points as we can see in Michigan this cycle. The fundamentals of the states dont change a ton between moderate and progressive candidates. What is gonna win elections is likely more based on enthusiasm and whether that cycle leans right or left, than the individual candidate. And I think a progressive candidate could bring out people more consistently, and fire people up more. So yeah. I do think we need to be a bit more economically progressive/populist, run a rust belt first strategy (while looking to expand into the sun belt as feasible without tainting our brand), and yeah.
I mean, the fact that trump was able to outplay us by THIS much is as much a democratic failure than it is a republican success. You think that trump of all people was looking at data like this? I doubt it. I think in 2016 he just ran an impassioned campaign based on populism and it resonated. Bernie literally could've had that energy had the dems not quashed it. And yeah, Im gonna keep going back to 2016, but I dont think you can understand 2024, without understanding 2016. People want something to vote for, they want someone to make their lives better. This shouldnt be rocket science, and the fact that the biggest scandal of this autopsy is that they attempted to cover up an incompetent report, and people thought the cover up was more malicious, points at the real problem with the democrats. They ignore what their own voters want and keep pushing this same crappy strategy on us that just doesn't work. They need to listen to people more and actually change based on voter feedback. They come off as arrogant, tell people what they want, dont listen to people, argue with them instead, and alienate voters. And that's why they lose elections.
Anyway, that's kinda my own third autopsy on this, but I wanted to get that out there as it's important to discuss.
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