Kamala Harris has a problem with men. Will misogyny cost her the election?

[IwantToRetire]

There was an earlier thread about whether the Democrats would support a WOC candidate https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5124648-will-us-democrats-support-a-woc-as-their-candidate-or-will-they-by-pass-kamala-harris

And I think there were some later about her policies, but then maybe there weren't. https://kamalaharris.com/issues/

But was depressed to see this article Kamala Harris has a problem with men. Will misogyny cost her the election?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/20/kamala-harris-has-a-problem-with-men-will-misogyny-cost-her-the-election
(Should have been men have a problem, not making out she is the problem.)

Polls reflect this age-old dichotomy. Men are more likely to back Trump; women lean towards Harris. A recent New York Times-Siena poll put her 16 points ahead of Trump among female voters. NBC gave her a 14-point lead with women. Trump leads by up to 16 points among men.

Harris’s gender may be tacitly affecting or reinforcing attitudes in other voter categories. In the New York Times poll, 60% of white college-educated voters backed Harris, while 63% of white non-college-educated voters backed Trump. Likewise, Trump, who is white, has a significant advantage among white people while Harris, who identifies as black and Asian, leads among non-whites. Yet voters in two other key categories, blacks and Hispanics, are less supportive of Harris than of Biden in 2020, surveys show – a decline partly driven by younger, non-college-educated Hispanic males. Speaking in pivotal Pennsylvania, Barack Obama angrily castigated his black “brothers” for finding “all kinds of excuses” not to support a woman.

Its just really depressing to think this is the basis on which the decision about the next US President is taken. Because like it or not what the US does or doesn't do impacts on the rest of us.

Even though they are now talking about Trump's mental capacity Trump’s Unwieldy Speeches Raise Questions About His Mental Acuity https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/10/16/trumps-unwieldy-speeches-raise-questions-about-his-mental-acuity/ it doesn't seem likely it will change the minds of his supporters. And is already clear he doesn't feel the need to abide by accepted norms in terms of procedures.

Divisive politics in the UK seems to have lead to an apathy, disengagement (low turn out at GE) but it seems, if news channels are to be believed, that in the US the devisions are making people more active engaged. More oppositional

Or rather men not caring about women's issues, or even trusting a woman to be President.

California was a Republican state under Reagan and has gone to shit under the Democrats. Guilani cleaned up New York as a Republican Mayor after decades of Democrat decline.

Democracts ruin cities and states.

Electoral College is very much needed.

I think she's awful. Hillary Clinton was no better.

Misogyny and racism in the US will damage her chances. I hope they will not be enough to defeat her.

But why would small states or their representatives vote for that? Right now, they have a lot more power than they would if things were done by popular vote.

I know. This was pointed out in one of the articles I linked to.

Am just finding it bizarre that for some it is like an article of faith.

The Electoral College has already been corrupted by party politics.

It has no relevance to politics today.

And even if the moneyed interested funding the parties want to keep it, why wouldn't the ordinary voter want their vote to be of the same value where ever they live in the US.

Really strange and convoluted arguement for it.

But then I dont understand the history, for instance someone on the earlier thread pointed out that why campaigning is as long as it currently is, is because it is still based on the day when you had to rely on horses (or even shanks ponies) to get from state to state.

And to think the UK gets criticism for sticking by out dated mechanisms.

The Clintons are hated in America beyond the elites of the Democrat bubble. Trump was able to win the working class vote as a result in 2016 which he'd never have been able to do over Sanders (or even Biden or Obama to the same extent)

The idea men in America wouldn't vote for a woman is a fallacy, it comes down to politics. Hilary was discredited politically. If Harris was a strong candidate then Biden wouldn't have been kept on as long as he was until the point it was no longer tenable. I think the election could go either way but it's politically where the nation is so divided and many will be unhappy at the candidates on offer.

"And even if the moneyed interested funding the parties want to keep it, why wouldn't the ordinary voter want their vote to be of the same value where ever they live in the US."

It's not the parties and it's not the party in power (as one of the quotes said), it's the Republicans. They like the Electoral College bc it gives less populous states more power than they'd have if presidential elections were based on the popular vote. Democrats tend to be (much) more popular in urban areas, so Republicans want urban voters to have less of a say than rural voters, who usually support Republicans. If Republicans had to win the popular vote, they would rarely be elected president. (Or, more likely, they'd change their policies to appeal more to urban voters. But rural voters don't want that, they want policies that benefit them.)

I am not avoiding the issue. I am presenting a different point of view. The Electoral College system ensures each state has a relatively equal say in who is president. It ensures that candidates popular in massively populous states aren’t the ones who are likely to rule over every other state.

And it’s a system that hasn’t produced massive issues. Why change it? If it was changed to just the popular vote, all that would happen is massive campaign bias to where the biggest numbers of people can be won in populous areas, which would only serve to disenfranchise other areas. It wouldn’t be better, just a different kind of good for some people and different kind of bad for others.

In the UK we have areas so the party with most votes often does not win.
Hence the repeated call for PR of which there are many types.

However you look at it the electoral college has produced winners from both parties so it doesn't favour one over the other.

If she won't get in due to racism why are they producing advertising aimed directly at black men as this is an area in which they normally dominate.

Wrong. The Electoral College makes sure the weight of a person's vote in Tennessee is several times more important than that of someone in New York or California. Which wasn't strictly speaking unusual for its time - we're talking of an era in which the weight of a man's (and always a man's) vote was also often tied to his tax status. Difference is everywhere else got rid of antidemocratic setups of the sort.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/american-constitution-norway/675199/

Well, some Americans hate HC, but nearly 66 million Americans liked her enough to vote for her to be President.

several times more important

It’s relative, the weighting of importance. No one was complaining about the electoral college in states like Tennessee when it voted for Clinton in 1996.

What I am saying is everyone rails against the election system in any country when it elects someone they don’t like, and everyone keeps quiet about it when it elects someone they like. Trump gives recency bias to a discussion because 8 years ago he lost the popular vote by a margin of 2%, not even the biggest of the four occasions. It was an anomaly, not an indication that the system is broken.

Four years ago he lost the popular vote by 4.5% and lost the election. If the popular vote had been the decider, there would have been a Democrat in the White House for over 30 years. Regardless of your politics, who thinks that would be a positive for the USA?

Many ppl in the US have been complaining about the Electoral College for decades, probably longer. It's antidemocratic. Ppl don't complain as much when the winner of the Electoral College also wins the popular vote.

"[O]ver the past 200 years more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject. The American Bar Association has criticized the Electoral College as “archaic” and “ambiguous” and its polling showed 69 percent of lawyers favored abolishing it in 1987.. . .Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing it by majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981."

https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/history

I don't think the numbers really support this being about misogyny.

There has been a significant slide in male support for Democrats ever since Obama. White men, black men, Hispanic men, and to a lesser extent from women as well.

A lot more men supported Hilary than Harris. So just possibly, the dislike of her isn't about that.

I don't quite understand why people seem surprised she is struggling, in her original bid for the candidacy she was so far behind that she had to give up almost immediately. She's arguably more high profile having been VP, but that was by no means a wholly positive period in terms of increasing her popularity.

Obama hasn't helped anything with his ham-fisted insistence that black men need to vote for her because she is black and if they don't it's because they are misogynists. In fact I think he really has done her some harm.

You are right about them being reluctant to get rid of Biden. If there was a strong candidate he would have been out long before. I suppose the outcome is anybody's guess. I thought Trump would win last time and I thought Hillary had a good chance the time before. Both wrong. Hillary even had the celebration party all planned

It's no different than if an organization EU was set up so every citizen voted and the countries with the most voters always got the outcomes that were best for them. Essentially, totally undermining any national element.

The US is a union of states, each of which agreed to enter into the union. Why would a tiny state agree to that knowing that their votes would be completely swallowed up? They wouldn't, it would be like disenfranchising their own voters.

It's a huge country with huge differences in lifestyle, environment, and the concerns of people in one corner of the country may be very different from those on the other side.

It would be deeply unfair to make it a straight proportion of the vote.

Another way to look at this is to say that the interests of rural and urban voters are often very different, and even opposed.

If rural voters were completely dominated by urban voters, which is what would happen, the president would effectively be consent without input from rural voters.

You may think it's great that rural voters who are more inclined to vote Republican don't get a meaningful vote since it doesn't align with your politics, but I don't think it makes the Republicans look especially bad if they don't agree.

I sometimes think that people in the UK have a vague understanding of how political figures are actually perceived in the US.

Hilary is seen as a representative of global capitalism, and a war hawk. Very much for big banks a the expense of the little people. She gave some talks to bankers (for big $$$) right when so many people had been hurt by the financial crash, which were leaked, and she basically told the bankers the government would make sure they came out ok.

Her comments about the deplorables gave the distinct impression that she despised WC people. Her campaign had a strong sense of, "you need to vote for me now because it's my turn".

She also ran at exactly the wrong time with the wrong emphasis. People were fed up and looking for an outsider who would shake things up. HC was a member of the political establishment and elite, and kept emphasizing it in her campaign.

She's also not a charismatic person, which isn't a character flaw but it a problem in politics at that level.

I think people also think she is a hypocrite, going on about helping the poor while raking it in due to her political connections.

The American Bar Association has criticized the Electoral College as “archaic” and “ambiguous” and its polling showed 69 percent of lawyers favored abolishing it in 1987.. . .Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing it by majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981."

Your ellipsis conveniently excludes this part:

But surveys of political scientists have supported continuation of the Electoral College.

And it would be interesting to see the sample data from those in the public who have been surveyed, as to whether it equally represented those in rural areas. 71% favoured abolishing it in 1981, after Reagan was elected. Who was sampled and what was their location and political leaning?

Very well said indeed.

Actually, Americans did vote for Hillary Clinton.

She won the popular vote by quite a few million.

But Trump won the electoral college and hence the presidency.

I already said.
Misogyny.🤷‍♀️

It woukd be a mistake to consider the electoral college in terms of Rich White Men.

Yes, at the time, RWM were working on a system that would represent the people (ie themselves).

But, they were not trying to keep people out (they did not see that women or poc would ever be in play), they were trying to set up circuit breakers to prevent one person grabbing power (a KING) and on the one hand, prevent mob rule.

And there was a lot of both those issues in 1700s.