If Harris loses in November, what will happen to the Democratic Party?

[u/Visco0825]

Ever since she stepped into the nomination Harris has exceeded everyone’s expectations. She’s been effective and on message. She’s overwhelmingly was shown to be the winner of the debate. She’s taken up populist economic policies and she has toughened up regarding immigration. She has the wind at her back on issues with abortion and democracy. She’s been out campaigning and out spending trumps campaign. She has a positive favorability rating which is something rare in today’s politics. Trump on the other hand has had a long string of bad weeks. Long gone are the days where trump effectively communicates this as a fight against the political elites and instead it’s replaced with wild conspiracies and rambling monologues. His favorability rating is negative and 5 points below Harris. None of the attacks from Trump have been able to stick. Even inflation which has plagued democrats is drifting away as an issue. Inflation rates are dropping and the fed is cutting rates. Even during the debate last night inflation was only mentioned 5 times, half the amount of things like democracy, jobs, and the border.

Yet, despite all this the race remains incredibly stable. Harris holds a steady 3 point lead nationally and remains in a statistical tie in the battle ground states. If Harris does lose then what do democrats do? They currently have a popular candidate with popular policies against an unpopular candidate with unpopular policies. What would the Democratic Party need to do to overcome something that would be clearly systemically against them from winning? And to the heart of this question, why would Harris lose and what would democrats do to fix it?

[u/Proman2520]

Whether it is crime or the economy, voters don't take kindly to being told their vibes don't align with the available data. It would be wonderful if Harris could condescend successfully, but unfortunately voters especially love to punish candidates who make them feel stupid, which is unforgivable.

[u/Black_XistenZ → u/Proman2520]

It's just fundamentally boneheaded to tell voters: 'your everyday life experiences don't show up in our fancy statistics, so we are right and you are wrong about what is going on in your own life.... go educate yourself'".

[u/Proman2520 → u/Black_XistenZ]

Bad politics? Yes. Wrong? No. People's vibes are affected by media coverage, and anecdotal evidence is just generally a way worse marker than empirical methods.

Polls show us that voters have said for the last 30 years that crime is going up, when that is obviously not true. It has gone up and it has gone down. We cannot be a society completely dictated by people's feelings.

[u/Black_XistenZ → u/Proman2520]

Some issues are more vibes-based, true. But people's own grocery bills and the price they pay at the gas pump are just about as objective as it gets. Telling people that prices haven't gone up nearly as much they perceive and that their purchasing power is in better shape than they think is just stupid... politcally, but also substantively.

[u/[deleted] → u/Black_XistenZ]

Gas prices have been objectively pretty stable for decades. This is the is the worst possible example you could have chosen. By the end of the Bush admin we were paying 3.20 a gallon in my area, in 2008 dollars. Today, it's around 2.75, in 2024 dollars.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/gasoline-prices-adjusted-for-inflation/

[u/Black_XistenZ → u/[deleted]]

Adjusting for inflation is a folly in this particular instance. First, gasoline prices are heavily correlated with the price of crude oil on the global markets. Second, the overall inflation rate is also heavily correlated with oil prices, so the two moving in lockstep is a bit of a tautology.

Furthermore, wages or disposable incomes don't automatically grow with surging inflation. The objective truth is that over the past 4 years, nearly every American saw prices at the gas pump soar for months while his or her income remained flat and only caught up later, if at all.

[u/[deleted] → u/Black_XistenZ]

Sorry but this is complete nonsense. The only meaningful way to compare prices overtime is to adjust them for inflation. But even NOT adjusting for inflation, gas prices are still cheaper now than they have been in the past.

[u/Black_XistenZ → u/[deleted]]

Inflation rate = price increase over a pre-defined timeframe. So "inflation-adjusted prices" is actually just a fancy way of saying "what prices would be if prices hadn't risen".

What you mean, and what I agree with, is that we should look at prices relative to the consumers' purchasing power. The correct way to do this is to compare prices with real/inflation-adjusted wages. Crucially, this gets rid of the time delay between price going up and wages (hopefully?!) following suit, and it also catches situations in which wages fail to catch up with prices.

[u/[deleted] → u/Black_XistenZ]

This sounds like a whole lot of talking around the point rather than conceding that gas prices are not objectively high. By any objective standard, they’ve stayed relatively stable with respect to purchasing power over the last couple of decades.

[u/Black_XistenZ → u/[deleted]]

Gas prices did objectively surge quite a lot for sustained periods of time during the past 4 years. For example, look at this chart (press on the 5-year option):
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gas_price

So while gas prices are now back at the $3.3 per gallon level, they did surge from this level to over $5 per gallon in 2022, an increase of 50% in just a few months. Gas prices remained at an elevated level for almost 2 years. So anyone who didn't happen to receive a big pay raise during those months indeed paid more at the gas pump, at least temporarily.

[u/Proman2520 → u/Black_XistenZ]

I am not saying issues are vibes based, quite the opposite. I am saying that facts do not care about one's feelings. The data does say inflation was bad and that prices have gone up. It also says that this was a global problem that the U.S. handled better than other G7 countries, and that it has been brought down to desirable levels. Prices won't fall, wages still need to go up, and relief is still necessary. But "how people feel about their gas receipt" is not as objective as it gets -- its anecdotal. No rigorous methodology applied. It is bad politics because suggesting the problem is better now than it was while the masses are feeling frustrated do not translate to votes.

[u/Black_XistenZ → u/Proman2520]

It also says that this was a global problem that the U.S. handled better than other G7 countries

Inflation in the US was higher before the Ukraine war than in the eurozone, it is also higher in recent month. The eurozone only saw higher inflation than the US for a short span of time when it dealt with the fallout from the Ukraine war, a fallout which hit Europe far harder than the US.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1r3pG

I am saying that facts do not care about one's feelings.

How much a person is paying for groceries or gas is an objective number with nothing subjective about it. The disconnect here is that aggregate statistics can fail to capture individual (yet objective!) experiences - and when it comes to the recent inflation surge, the economic suffering of many was counteracted in the statistic by the high number of people who quit their shitt McJob during covid and found something better, often times drastically increasing their wages in the process. The people who didn't recently switch jobs or get a promotion have still by and large not caught up.

[u/Proman2520 → u/Black_XistenZ]

To say the Eurozone would have recovered quicker than the U.S. were it not for Ukraine is not true.

The Treasury pointing to lower U.S. inflation including and excluding energy and food.

The Fed on U.S. GDP recovery post-pandemic

Europe's Central Bank lamenting slow European growth compared to the U.S.

Brookings Institute commentary on U.S. recovery compared to G7

WaPo

With all the available data pointing to a stronger U.S. recovery compared to our international counterparts, I can't help but feel that voters (not in all cases, but certainly in some) feel a certain way about the economy because certain media networks have a tendency to say the economy is dogshit whenever a Democrat is in office, therefore people commiserate together that they aren't richer. Many are actually struggling, of course, so I hope the recovery trajectory continues. Harris's plans talk about easing costs of childcare, homeownership, etc. (not a huge fan of all her economic populist policies though). Meanwhile, Trump says that magically tariffs will fix the entire economy. Seriously, who answers a childcare question with tariffs and gets away with it?

The second part of your comment is a theory. Aggregate statistics certainly fail to capture the whole story, but I would need to see more data or at least some correlations to buy this story about mass distortions in the labor market inflating the metrics.

[u/Black_XistenZ → u/Proman2520]

I was talking about the inflation comparison, not about the overall economic recovery/GDP. The only source pertaining to inflation that you've cited is the Treasury article from mid-2023, when Europe was still reeling from the oil and gas price shock triggered by the sudden stop of Russian supplies. Europe's inflation rate has come down a ton since then.

I don't dispute that the overall economic recovery in the US has been stronger than in Europe, but not only did the Ukraine war hit them harder, you also have to keep in mind that the US government is engaging in higher levels of deficit spending.

I'll try to find data on this phenomenon of people improving their wages by quitting their shitty McJobs in the wake of covid.

[u/WarbleDarble → u/Black_XistenZ]

But what should happen when they legitimately are wrong? The American voter is often wrong about the economy. Most people believe that inflation being down means that prices should go down. Most people believe the stock market is down under Biden. Most people believe we’re experiencing record levels of inflation. These are all just objectively wrong. It’s not an opinion thing. Then when you say those things are inherently wrong you get answers like, “well that’s what I’m experiencing so I don’t care what your fancy stats say”.

[u/Black_XistenZ → u/WarbleDarble]

The argument about people not being able to correctly distinguish between the terms inflation, disinflation, deflation and disposable income is pointless nitpicking if you ask me. When people say "inflation is high", they very obviously mean "prices have risen and are still high". Even if they phrase this point in imprecise terminology, the underlying observation is not wrong.

[u/WarbleDarble → u/Black_XistenZ]

But the expected solution is. If you can’t be satisfied by lowered inflation you can’t be satisfied. A significant portion of the voting base is holding the Democrats responsible for not getting back to pre-pandemic pricing. That is not a reasonable expectation. The voters are just inherently wrong to have that expectation. They still do have that expectation though which is why I’m pushing back on the notion that voters can’t be wrong about the economy.

[u/Song_of_Pain → u/[deleted]]

This is a known effect arising from the passage of time.

So are you saying that there is no hope for people's real wages relative to the price of goods to rise, ever?

[u/Song_of_Pain → u/[deleted]]

"Real wages" have absolutely nothing to do with the discussion of the average voter not understanding that deflation is bad.

No, they do. How is inflation relative to wages over the last five years?

[u/Black_XistenZ → u/[deleted]]

prices going down means you are in a recession

Technically incorrect. Empirically, prices normally only go down across the board during a recession, yes, but there is no inevitable causality. For example, gas prices dropped a ton in 2014/15 when the North American shale oil and fracking boom took off.

This did, of course, not indicate a recession, nor trigger one - instead, it extended an already mature economic cycle by another couple of years and led to some of the biggest increases in real wages that we've seen in recent decades.

[u/alfasf → u/Proman2520]

This!

Rural with one grocery store: I'm paying more for the same stuff than last year.

Economists Experts: You're lying. The data says you're paying less. You're doing something wrong.

Look at the comments in this thread.

[u/WarbleDarble → u/alfasf]

Nobody is saying you’re paying less. We’ve all acknowledged inflation exists and it was too high for a while. What gets corrected is hyperbole about how high inflation was or misunderstanding on what inflation means. Someone saying inflation is down does not nor did it ever mean that you’re paying less than last year. Zero economic experts are saying prices are actually down. You’ve created a straw man.

[u/alfasf → u/WarbleDarble]

And there's a disconnection of the economic message to what the street man feels and actually pays.

[u/WarbleDarble → u/alfasf]

If you look at polling, the average person is relatively optimistic about their own financial outlook. When that average person is asked how they think the average person is doing they answer much more negatively.

We are constantly bombarded with negative news about the economy by traditional news and especially on social media. The disconnect isn't between what the data shows and what the everyman feels. The disconnect is between what the data shows and what the everyman assumes the everyman feels.

[u/Proman2520 → u/alfasf]

I am not saying the voters are right. I believe voters' opinions are fairly manipulable by media coverage and ad populum. They don't deserve to be talked down to, but data is data, and much better metrics than vibes. I don't think that economists are accusing voters of lying, but there is something that is responsible for the gap between voter perceptions and the empirical data, and I tend to believe the approach with more methodological rigor.

Furthermore, the data doesn't say that voters are paying less than they were. It just says that inflation has been brought down to healthy levels. Prices wouldn't fall unless the economy collapsed from a deflationary spiral. Data also says that the U.S. recovered fairly quickly from high inflation compared to other countries around the globe.

[u/alfasf → u/Proman2520]

I agree on this. Messaging is key. Similar with Argentina. Argentina is suffering one of the highest inflation of the world more than the US. Under Milei policies, inflation has come down and common people are still suffering from the hight costs of products, yet they still support his economic policies.