Harris campaign officials explain what went wrong — and what Trump did right: report

Top Democrats in Vice President’s Harris campaign say their lobbying efforts were insufficient in the face of widespread dissatisfaction with the way the country views voters.

Officials who worked on the campaign provided an autopsy report to the Washington Post on Thursday, saying that former President Trump also took advantage of new media opportunities that Harris left untouched.

“There are certain things we’re looking to understand if we make the right call,” campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told the Post. “But really, there wasn’t a single audience of voters that could have influenced this, or a single program. The storms were too big to overcome, especially in 107 days. But we’re very close to what we expected, both of us, in terms of candidates and support.”

Campaign officials said their internal models going into Election Day had Harris leading in Wisconsin and Michigan, and tied in Pennsylvania, according to the Post. Their models had Trump leading in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

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“We’re very focused on understanding what happened,” O’Malley Dillon said. “We were focused on the battleground states. We knew it was going to be a bumpy ride, but with the organization we had and the movement we saw, we thought it was possible.”

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Campaign officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, also praised the Trump campaign and the GOP at large for expanding their reach to citizens across the US.

“I think what we have seen is that the people on the other side, in Team Red, have been doing this work for many years,” the official told the Post. “And there are many reasons that we should do … where young men in particular will get their information, especially young men who do not pay attention to what politics says.”

President-elect Donald Trump waves at UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden, Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024, in New York, with Kid Rock, Dana White and Elon Musk. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

During the campaign, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, they regularly appear on a wide range of podcasts with great personalities, many of them comedians like Theo Von and Tim Dillon. That culminated in Trump and Vance appearing back-to-back on the world’s biggest podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, before Election Day.

Former President Trump sat down for a three-hour interview with podcast giant Joe Rogan on “The Joe Rogan Experience” before Election Day. (Screenshot/Joe Rogan Experience)

Harris has made an effort to use similar forms of media with her appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, which appeals mainly to young women.

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“We’re not here to tell you everything was fine,” O’Malley Dillon said. “We lost. But some losses are unique things, like we just did [an interview with] Joe Rogan, then that would solve the problem with the guys. That’s too easy and it doesn’t solve anything and it certainly doesn’t solve the way forward.”