by Pierce Butler
Michael Podhorzer has written some of the most original and insightful analyses of the 2024 election, which rebut a lot of the shallow reportage of the last few months.
Particularly, he notes how recent bent decisions of the Supreme Court tilted the electoral and legal playing field (see “This is NOT a year-end appeal” at tinyurl.com/Iguana2134) and how Trump did not win the election so much as Harris lost (see “How Trump Won” at tinyurl.com/Iguana2135):
Trump was no more popular this year than four years ago, while Harris significantly underperformed Biden 2020
Most of Harris’s losses were due to anti-MAGA surge voters staying home. She lost the most ground in deep-Blue urban areas
About 19 million Americans who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 did not vote in 2024
About 15 million fewer votes were cast “against” Trump than in 2020.
Podhorzer supports his case with numbers, charts, and maps — but readers who plow through his work will come out much better informed about US elections — and the need for progressives to turn out — than they were before.