Audio excerpt — Dr Emma Shortis:

“So I am here at Howard University in Washington, D.C. in amongst a sea of people at the election night rally for Kamala Harris. And the atmosphere, I have to say, is pretty tense…”

DANIEL:

As the US election began to rapidly slip away from Kamala Harris, it became clear that she wasn’t going to get on stage and speak anytime soon. And people at her election night rally began to drift away into the Washington night.

Audio excerpt — Dr Emma Shortis:

“It's about 20 minutes to midnight Eastern Time and people are starting to leave the Harris rally. The mood is very subdued. It's become clear that it's a very difficult path ahead...”

DANIEL:

The optimism that earlier filled the room had faded away. Dr Emma Shortis was there, but also didn’t wait to see if Harris would speak either.

It turns out she didn’t.

Donald Trump spoke in Florida shortly after.

Audio excerpt — Donald Trump:

“Look what happened. Is this crazy?”

DANIEL:

Trump delivered a result that defied most expectations, projected to win not just the presidency, but the popular vote too.

Audio excerpt — Donald Trump:

“Every single day I will be fighting for you and with every breath in my body. I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America. That's what we have to have.”

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DANIEL:

It seems most Americans do in fact want to go back.

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James. This is 7am.

Today, senior researcher at The Australia Institute, Dr Emma Shortis, on Trump’s return to the White House, and what it all means for the future of the Democratic Party and democracy itself.

It’s Thursday November 7.

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DANIEL:

Emma Shortis, thanks for joining us. You’ve just come from what should be a joyous moment for the Harris camp. You were there for most of the evening, so you were tracking progress as the results were coming in in real time. What was the first big shock of the day from your perspective?

EMMA:

I think that's a good question, Dan, I'm not sure there was one one particular big shock for me. I think, you know, it sort of became clear over the course of the night that turnout wasn't going to be as good for Harris as people had initially thought. I think the moment for me actually came a little bit later when, you know, things were becoming more and more subdued as it was becoming clear how close it was.

And CNN called California for Harris, which, you know, of course, it's no surprise at all that California would go Democratic.

But the cheer that greeted that call, the kind of desperation in that cheer was probably the moment where I really confronted, I suppose, where it was heading. And I think that moment had that effect on quite a lot of people there, too.

DANIEL:

And how did it play out throughout the night in some of those key swing states like North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada? What was the feeling when, say, somewhere like North Carolina was announced?

EMMA:

Yeah, it was pretty bleak.

You know, initially it looked particularly in Pennsylvania, like turnout was going to be really significant, you know, much higher than 2020. And I think a lot of people there and in the media as well took that as a sign that, you know, Pennsylvania was on track for Harris.

But across the course of the night, it became clear that that wasn't the case at all.

Audio excerpt — Reporter 1:

“So America, as the former President, Trump is closing in with just a few electoral votes away now from clinching 270 as Pennsylvania is called for Donald Trump.”

EMMA:

So that kind of gradual realisation, you know, you could see that dawning on people across the evening.

And then, yeah, there were some audible groans when North Carolina was called.

Audio excerpt — Reporter 2:

“Former President Donald Trump will win the state of North Carolina. This has been a contested state. Vice President Harris went there many, many times.”

EMMA:

And Georgia was called after after a lot of people had left. So people started streaming at that at sort of about 11, 11:30pm.

DANIEL:

So a lot of this was a shock to people in the room. Was it a shock to you, Emma?

EMMA:

I think it was Dan. You know, I think the polls have been so close for so long as you know, but American politics has felt so scrambled, particularly in that in the last year or so. And Donald Trump has so upset our political instincts that I honestly just didn't know, you know, couldn't read it, which way it was going to go. So it is almost a shock that the polls appear to have been correct.

I was talking to a colleague in Philadelphia and we were discussing the fact that it felt equally possible that it would be this kind of result, you know, this kind of close result or, you know, it could be a 1980-level landslide like a Reagan versus Jimmy Carter kind of landslide. And both of those things felt equally possible.

And I think it's worth keeping that in mind. You know, the zone will be flooded with a lot of certainty in the next week or so about what's happened and why it's happened and what it means. And I think we should be really cautious about, you know, how effectively we can untangle the knot of American politics.

DANIEL:

After the break, what lessons will the Democrats take from their loss?

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DANIEL:

Emma when we look at this election, how does it compare to 2016? Because that was a shock result that everyone will remember and no doubt everyone will remember tonight as well.

EMMA:

Well, look, I think maybe, Dan, you know, 2016 was more of a shock because there was such certainty that Clinton was going to win, that she was a shoe in.

What this shows is that the long and deep structural divides of American politics that Trump capitalised on so effectively in 2016 are still there. You know, he can still capitalise on them and do it incredibly effectively. So, you know, of course a lot will be made about the economy and the state of the economy and how much that helped Trump. And of course that's true, but it's those long divisions and the failure or maybe that's too harsh a word, you know, to ask Biden to kind of heal all of those divisions. But the inability of the Biden administration to really address those structural issues is what has helped Trump.

DANIEL:

Trump has been very effective at speaking to people's grievances. Why do you think the Democrats have failed to speak to those same grievances?

EMMA:

I think that partly what has happened is that Democrats haven't been able to account for their complicity, I think, in the erosion of American economic life.

You know, they haven't been able to account for Bill Clinton's role in implementing free trade agreements and dramatically restructuring the American economy away from kind of domestic based manufacturing. Democrats just haven't had an answer for that.

But we also just can't underestimate the structural racism of American politics. You know, we just can't escape that foundational fact of American history and that structural racism is what drives so much of Donald Trump's base’s grievance.

DANIEL:

So in relation to the campaign itself, Harris had to, you know, outperform Trump in almost every sense in terms of spend, in terms of her reach, in terms of her energy. Did she underperform or did Donald Trump over perform? Because it seems like there was a high voter turnout. I think that's something we can comfortably say.

EMMA:

I think I would say that Trump has overperformed, you know, his campaign strategy was to mobilise, men in particular.

You know, he's engaging with figures like Elon Musk and that's why he's going on Joe Rogan's podcast. And it appears at least that, you know, he's reached that audience of men and young men and mobilised them.

Audio excerpt — Donald Trump:

“We also have a man named Dana White who has done some...”

Audio excerpt — Dana White:

“I want to thank some people real quick. I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin' with the Boys. And last but not the least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.”

EMMA:

So, I think there's an argument to be made that he overperformed there and and likely a similar argument that Harris has underperformed.

But I think, you know, we can also look at more specific issues like Michigan, for example, which is a critical swing state where voters there had sent clear messages to Democrats about their devastation at the United States’ role in the world, and particularly the Biden administration's support of Israel. And the party proved itself unwilling to that core part of its base.

And then you know, looking at Georgia and North Carolina, I and a lot of people thought that reproductive freedom would be more of a mobilising issue.

I actually spent the weekend in North Carolina in Charlotte. So I went to a Harris rally there which was just full of young women and North Carolina is a state with an incredibly draconian abortion ban that is affecting the lives of those women in material ways. You know, I expected that, again, it would be more of a mobilising factor or Trump would be more of a turnoff, I guess, in those states.

It's possible. It seems that that was not the case and that for whatever reason, Harris has not reached enough women, or women haven't turned out in the right numbers in big enough numbers in the right places.

Trump has historically performed fairly well with white suburban women. And it may be that Democrats overestimated how much white women would be mobilised by reproductive freedom over other issues. We know from 2016 that Donald Trump's sexism and misogyny is not an obstacle to his political success. And it appears that, you know, this evening has only further confirmed that.

DANIEL:

And finally, what lessons do you think the Democratic Party are going to take away from this election?

EMMA:

I have long suspected that if Harris lost this campaign, that centrist elements in the Democratic Party and possibly even in the Republican Party as well, will make the argument that Harris was too progressive, her policies were too progressive and she turned off, quote unquote, “independent or swing voters”.

Again, I think that's a politically convenient argument. You know, it's a pretty old tactic to blame the left for their losses. And I think it will be really important as well in the lead up to an Australian federal election to watch the lessons that the federal Labor Party takes out of a Harris loss. Because we know that, you know, Australian politics does look very closely to American politics and that there are close relations between the Labor Party and the Democratic Party. So I think that that's something I'll be watching for as well to see what that kind of exchange is and you know, what lessons they are drawing out of it.

DANIEL:

Dr Emma Shortis, thank you so much for your time.

EMMA:

My pleasure. Thanks, Dan.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today

The High Court has ruled that forcing former immigration detainees to wear ankle bracelets is unconstitutional.

The Albanese government introduced legislation last year to impose curfews and electronic monitoring on former detainees released into the community, following a High Court Ruling that indefinite detention was illegal.

And

Thousands of Israelis have protested across the country, after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked his defence minister, calling on his successor to prioritise a deal to return the hostages in Gaza.

Demonstrators gathered in central Tel Aviv blocking the city’s main highway and crippling traffic, while several thousands protested in Jerusalem, including outside Netanyahu’s home.

I’m Daniel James, 7am will be back tomorrow.

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