As ballots started to be counted on Election Day, millions of Americans were glued to their seats waiting anxiously to see who would be the 47th President of the United States. According to polls, the race appeared to be a dead heat, especially in critical swing states such as Pennsylvania. To the dismay of those in the Democratic party, state after state turned red as the night wore on. Even in Democratic strongholds such as New York City, Vice President Harris underperformed expectations, causing panic to spread throughout the party.
Democrats, remembering the late blue shift of the 2020 election, anxiously anticipated a similar wave of support to occur in swing states. However, at 5:34 a.m. EST, the Associated Press called Wisconsin and its ten electoral votes for Trump, handing him the election. President-elect Trump not only won all seven swing states but also won the popular vote for the Republicans for the first time since 2004.
To say Trump’s landslide victory caught Democrats off guard would be an understatement. Although Vice President Harris only had 107 days to campaign, the party felt her momentum was surging before the election. The night before, Harris’s campaign advisor David Plouffe went on CNN and claimed the vice president had a path to carry all seven battleground states and was “positioned to win” late-breaking undecided voters. The vice president also out-fundraised President-Elect Trump, raising more than one billion dollars since her entry to the race in late July.
In the autopsy of the Harris-Walz ticket, Democrats have been quick to point the finger at a multitude of issues: underlying racism and sexism toward the idea of the first black woman president, Harris’s refusal to pivot away from the Biden administration’s unpopular stances toward Gaza, the adoption of right-wing figures and framework when it came to issues such as immigration, and embracing Republicans Liz and Dick Cheney. The list goes on.
Notwithstanding, one glaring issue that has flown under the radar is responsible for cracking open the Harris campaign… egg prices!
“It’s the economy, stupid!” was a mantra that single handedly carried Bill Clinton across the finish line to win his first presidential term against incumbent President George H. W. Bush. Coined by James Carville in 1992, the phrase has been a staple of political rhetoric repeated on both sides of the aisle to help sway voters and message their respective campaigns. Regardless of many other issues on the ballot, more often than not the economy remains the most important issue for the American people, who want to see their cost of living decrease and have more disposable income.
The cost of living in critical swing states has jumped past the national average throughout the Biden administration. Cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix, and—most importantly—Philadelphia have suffered from increased cost of living and a notable decrease in real wage growth (wage adjusted in terms of inflation). Millions of Americans felt the impact of this inflationary pressure leading up to the election, illustrated best through egg price fluctuation.
During the Biden administration, egg prices in Pennsylvania increased 89% from December 2021 to December 2022. After a short reprieve from inflationary pressure resulting from the policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, egg prices suddenly surged nationwide by 28.1% in August—three months before the election—compared to their 2023 levels.
Republicans saw food inflation as a political opportunity and constructed a narrative around it. JD Vance had a photo-op in Reading, Pennsylvania discussing the absurd price of a dozen eggs, appealing to middle-class Americans. To be fair, he misrepresented the price of eggs as $4.00 even while the sticker tag visibly read $2.99. Nonetheless, the attack served as a scathing indictment of the Biden-Harris economy. In the footsteps of his VP, Donald Trump campaigned in Kittanning, Pennsylvania primarily by addressing the surge in grocery prices. Other members of the GOP, like RNC spokesperson Taylor Rogers, wrote scathing indictments of the Biden-Harris economy: “From cereal to baked goods, chicken and beef, eggs, and milk, Americans are paying the price of Kamala’s failed policies just to put food on the table for their families.”
This economic framing resonated with voters, paying dividends for Republicans. President-Elect Trump won Pennsylvania by over 100,000 votes, leaving Harris supporters and pollsters alike bewildered. This is the egg on the face of the Democrats: the importance of the economy in the minds of voters was well-reported before the election. The Pew Research Center had polls out in September showing that the economy was the number one priority for voters this election, trumping—pun intended—the next highest issue on the ballot by a whopping 16 points. Among Harris voters, the economy was even seen as a more pertinent issue than abortion.
Rather than crafting their message around the economy and identifying solutions to appeal to middle-class Americans, Democrats wasted millions on discussing how Trump was a “danger to democracy.” These attacks were ineffective considering they had little impact on the lives of everyday Americans. It is time for the Democratic party to look in the mirror about their overall messaging and make a substantive change. Republicans were able to address the concerns of Americans, winning on the issue of the economy and, with it, the election.
