Lack of male support hurt Harris, but did Walz fail to deliver?

WASHINGTON – As the dust settles over a contentious and bitter-fought election, Democratic officials and others who analyze these events are trying to determine what went wrong for the Harris-Walz campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris won Minnesota, but the key swing states were beyond her grasp. And she won Minnesota by a smaller margin of victory than President Joe Biden did in 2020, even though she had favorite son Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

Harris won Minnesota 50.9% to Trump’s 46.9%, falling short of Biden’s 52.4% to 45.3% win over Trump in 2020. 

A MinnPost analysis of Tuesday’s results showed all of Minnesota’s 87 counties — except Lake, Lincoln, Mower and Cook counties — shifted to the GOP on Election Day.

Analysts say there are several reasons Harris fell short. One is that her very late entrance into the presidential contests after Biden decided in July not to seek reelection did not give her enough time — just about 100 days — to introduce herself to the nation.

“I don’t think she had enough opportunity for people to know her,” said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. “There wasn’t enough time for her to connect with people.”

Trump, meanwhile, has campaigned for the presidency three times since 2016 and was a known commodity. There’s evidence that in some “blue” states like Minnesota, voter participation waned this year.

According to an analysis by The Washington Post, the turnout of eligible voters in 2020 was 78.8%. But that dropped to 75.6% when the ballots were counted Tuesday, even with Walz — who was expected to drive up enthusiasm — on the ticket.

Did Walz hurt Harris’ chances?

Statistician Nate Silver told The New York Times it may have been better for Harris to have chosen a different running mate.

"As a founding member of She Shoulda Picked Shapiro, I think it's relatively clear now that she made a mistake," Silver said, referring to one-time contender Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Silver also said Walz was “mediocre” in his debate performance against GOP Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance and “nervous in his public appearances.”

But Silver also said Vance was “the worst pick” Trump could have made and was a choice made when Trump was overconfident because he thought he was running against Biden.

Baker of Rutgers University countered Silver’s argument about Walz. “I don’t think the vice presidential candidate matters that much,” he said.

He also noted that Pennsylvania voted for a Republican attorney general on Tuesday, despite Shapiro’s strong support for his Democratic rival.

Lindberg agreed that Walz likely did not have much of an impact on Tuesday’s results.

“I think there are a lot of other factors that come into play before you get into the question of whether (Harris’) vice presidential choice helped or hurt her campaign,” he said.

The ‘bro’ factor

One factor is that exit polls backed up traditional polls that showed a large gender gap. A MinnPost-Embold research poll taken last month of the state’s likely voters determined women favored Harris 53%-40% and men favored Trump 52%-40%.

Women have been drifting to the Democratic Party and men to the GOP. But those trends accelerated after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, resulting in the limitation or banning of abortion in many states.

With his inability to attract female voters, Trump successfully bet on men with a late-campaign $20 million aimed at running up his numbers with them that included macho rhetoric and appearances on podcasts that appealed to young men.

Baker said one reason Harris lost male voters is that some of them “just didn’t feel a woman was up to the job of president.”

But there are other reasons Trump won over men.

Corey Birkholz, 53, voted for Democratic former President Barack Obama but has moved to the GOP since then.

The Plymouth resident said a key issue in the race was the U.S.-Mexico border and what he called a “massive influx” of illegal immigration. Trump’s hardline on immigration appealed to him, but he was also among a majority of voters who voiced concern about the economy.

“He's got a business mind instead of being a career politician,” Birkholz said. “So, I like how he approaches problems. He often comes up with creative solutions, out of the box things.” 

Early exit polls show Trump was also able to woo men who traditionally don’t favor the GOP, including Latinos and Black males — not in huge numbers but enough to make a difference in the closely fought swing states.

And Baker said there was a “bro factor” that gave Trump the support of a sizable amount of young male voters. “Young men, over the past couple of decades, see women making progress at their expense,” he said.

While Harris and Walz stumped on abortion rights, a new child tax credit and other issues important to women, “Trump’s messaging was about the economy and things that matter in the day-to-day life of many voters,” Lindberg said.

“These issues and concerns have resonated more with male voters than female voters,” he said.

Andrew Hedquist, 21, a student of philosophy and political science at the University of Minnesota-Morris, said the economy was high on his list of concerns when he cast his vote for Trump.

He said he is concerned about inflation and the cost of living, but admitted that “under Trump, I’m not super confident that things are going to go well for me economically.” But he said Harris did not give him any hope.

And he said the Democratic Party, with its focus on women’s issues and diversity, has ignored the needs of people like him. “Younger white men feel they are thought of last,” he said.

Chris Fleming, chair of the  Minnesota College Republicans, said his support of Trump was based on his view that “Trump was the more pro-life of the two candidates.”

“So I wanted to vote for him for that,” he said. “And I also trust Trump more on foreign policy. I thought the world was a more peaceful place during Trump's presidency.”

 A product of rural America, Walz was chosen in part to balance Harris’ San Franciscan roots and biracial identity — and hopefully appeal to male voters.

Hedquist, who comes from Stillwater, said that was “disingenuous” and that Walz has more appeal among “cosmopolitan” urban voters.

Lindberg is not so sure Walz failed at the job of selling the Democratic ticket to men.

“The question is, ‘Would the (hemorrhaging of male voters) have been worse without him?’” he asked. “The assumption that he didn’t do much with men doesn’t take into account that he could have staunched a greater loss.”

Ana Radelat

Ana Radelat is MinnPost's Washington, D.C. correspondent. You can reach her at aradelat@minnpost.com or follow her on Twitter at @radelat.

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