Who ran a worse campaign, Hillary or Kamala?

[Tekken_Guy]

Who ran the worse campaign, Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Hard to say because I wasn't really politically engaged in 2016, but I see cases for both:

It seems like Harris was more effective at targeting the needed places even if i8t wasn't enough in the end - she ran a campaign that was very grounded around the 7 key swing states and nothing else, and in the end she held up disproportionately better in said swing states. Clinton on the other hand tried expanding the map too aggressively while ignoring other states, and it ended up costing her big time.

On the flip side, the Harris campaign did quite a poor job at expanding the Democratic tent. There was almost nowhere in the Country where Harris made meaningful gains that can't be attributed to Demographic changes (i.e. south sides of metro Atlanta and Dallas), whereas at least Hillary Clinton did have what were individually impressive performances in places like Miami and did outright better than Obama in (then important states) like VA.

I think overall the logistics of Harris's/Democrat's campaign was more competent, but the messaging was worse.

[Mr. Smith]

Hillary had the inferior strategy, but superior tactics.  Harris had the superior strategy, but inferior tactics. [on the whole, there are elements of Harris' tactics that were superior and elements of Hillary's strategy that were superior].

There's a reason why I knew Hillary was pretty much done after the 9/11 fainting spell, but honestly couldn't tell where things would go for Harris.

It's easier to sus out a questionable strategy than it is bad tactics.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Hands down Kamala, its not even close. To Hillary's credit, she had little idea about the blue wall slipping until the end and basically was forced to inherit the battlegrounds from 2012. Trump was also a complete wildcard and trailing badly in the polls. No one really expected him to overperform massively either. Yes, she ran a status quo campaign, but Obama had decent approval and Trump was a pure shock jock candidate and she was an experienced and qualified (albeit evil) woman.

Harris on the other hand, witnessed TWO previous elections against Trump. Yes, Hillary constantly talked about the glass ceiling and her making history but the campaign was at least run professionally by Robby Mook and millennial men. Sure, Harris didn't mention her race or gender but her campaign was way more genZ female-coded than Hillary's. The whole "brat" thing and calling Trump/Vance weird turned off a lot of men. Then they produced the most estrogen inciting men for Harris, including white "dudes" for Harris, and the one calling men cowards for not wanting to vote women.

Kamala was just an empty suit and was unable to discuss policy either unlike Hillary. Her superficial knowledge of the issues demonstrated how vastly unqualified she was. Her going on friendly media like the View and Colbert then saying she wouldn't be different than Joe Biden was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.

Hillary now goes to sleep at night knowing that she is no longer the worst performing Dem in the rust belt anymore.

[Samof94]

Hillary had the inferior strategy, but superior tactics.  Harris had the superior strategy, but inferior tactics. [on the whole, there are elements of Harris' tactics that were superior and elements of Hillary's strategy that were superior].

There's a reason why I knew Hillary was pretty much done after the 9/11 fainting spell, but honestly couldn't tell where things would go for Harris.

It's easier to sus out a questionable strategy than it is bad tactics.

Hillary was also running on a more neutral playing field and the "Latino trends" and Covid had not happened yet.

[Peppermint_Splatty]

Hillary had the inferior strategy, but superior tactics.  Harris had the superior strategy, but inferior tactics. [on the whole, there are elements of Harris' tactics that were superior and elements of Hillary's strategy that were superior].

There's a reason why I knew Hillary was pretty much done after the 9/11 fainting spell, but honestly couldn't tell where things would go for Harris.

It's easier to sus out a questionable strategy than it is bad tactics.

Hillary's death blow was the Comey investigation that happened at the worst possible time. I think Hillary's health wasn't a major factor however

[LBJer]

I voted Hillary Clinton, because of her relative neglect of Wisconsin and Michigan.  But neither ran a bad campaign.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Biden didn't run a particularly good campaign either, but won because of the pandemic.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Clinton had a lot more that went wrong with the campaign's control in hindsight even though she ran in a better environment to defeat Trump.

Harris had the opposite: her campaign, while it could have done a few things different in hindsight, mostly learned from both 2016 and 2020 of what could be done better and didn't take anything for granted. It just ended up not mattering in the environment.

[nclib]

On the flip side, the Harris campaign did quite a poor job at expanding the Democratic tent. There was almost nowhere in the Country where Harris made meaningful gains that can't be attributed to Demographic changes (i.e. south sides of metro Atlanta and Dallas), whereas at least Hillary Clinton did have what were individually impressive performances in places like Miami and did outright better than Obama in (then important states) like VA.

This is not necessarily good/bad about Hillary/Kamala, but has more to do with Hillary facing a Trump-induced different GOP coalition in 2016, but Trump for the third time in 2024 had an established coalition that was harder to make gains on.

[Voice of low info America]

Hillary ran a very calculated campaign, including helping a pied piper get the Republican nomination, it's just that one fundamental assumption was wrong. Almost nobody, not even Trump, knew at that time just how formidable a political force he was. Structurally, Harris' campaign wasn't bad but she got worse as a candidate as the campaign went on, exposing her as someone with no political talent.

Yeah, we can all easily criticize Hillary for not visiting Wisconsin, etc. with 20/20 hindsight, but Harris made way more mistakes that were obvious in real time - over reliance on celebrities, not offering real policy (worse, copying Trump's policies in some cases), not distancing herself from Biden, trying to turn out nonexistent Liz Cheney voters...

[LBJer]

Harris made way more mistakes that were obvious in real time - over reliance on celebrities, not offering real policy (worse, copying Trump's policies in some cases), not distancing herself from Biden, trying to turn out nonexistent Liz Cheney voters...

It's simply not true that she didn't offer real policy.  She did--both verbally and on her website.  And it's either only clear in hindsight or not clear at all that the other things you mention were mistakes.  

[Meclazine for Israel]

That's an impossible question to answer.

That is like asking two losers of the Superbowl who played the worse game.

Sometimes, a once in a generation political mastermind comes along and just wins.

[Pericles]

The reality is Trump got more popular at each election. It should have been the other way around, but it wasn't.

[ProgressiveModerate]

On the flip side, the Harris campaign did quite a poor job at expanding the Democratic tent. There was almost nowhere in the Country where Harris made meaningful gains that can't be attributed to Demographic changes (i.e. south sides of metro Atlanta and Dallas), whereas at least Hillary Clinton did have what were individually impressive performances in places like Miami and did outright better than Obama in (then important states) like VA.

This is not necessarily good/bad about Hillary/Kamala, but has more to do with Hillary facing a Trump-induced different GOP coalition in 2016, but Trump for the third time in 2024 had an established coalition that was harder to make gains on.

This is a fair point, but still there was not a single group of voters Harris made meaningful gains with - not even some small geopolitically unique community in this large Country. Yet Trump was able to still grow his coalition from 2020.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

On the flip side, the Harris campaign did quite a poor job at expanding the Democratic tent. There was almost nowhere in the Country where Harris made meaningful gains that can't be attributed to Demographic changes (i.e. south sides of metro Atlanta and Dallas), whereas at least Hillary Clinton did have what were individually impressive performances in places like Miami and did outright better than Obama in (then important states) like VA.

This is not necessarily good/bad about Hillary/Kamala, but has more to do with Hillary facing a Trump-induced different GOP coalition in 2016, but Trump for the third time in 2024 had an established coalition that was harder to make gains on.

This is a fair point, but still there was not a single group of voters Harris made meaningful gains with - not even some small geopolitically unique community in this large Country. Yet Trump was able to still grow his coalition from 2020.

Hey, she got 2.5 times as many voters in Loving County TX as Biden. Huge gain there. OK, that's about it.

[Reactionary Libertarian]

Hands down Kamala, its not even close. To Hillary's credit, she had little idea about the blue wall slipping until the end and basically was forced to inherit the battlegrounds from 2012. Trump was also a complete wildcard and trailing badly in the polls. No one really expected him to overperform massively either. Yes, she ran a status quo campaign, but Obama had decent approval and Trump was a pure shock jock candidate and she was an experienced and qualified (albeit evil) woman.

Harris on the other hand, witnessed TWO previous elections against Trump. Yes, Hillary constantly talked about the glass ceiling and her making history but the campaign was at least run professionally by Robby Mook and millennial men. Sure, Harris didn't mention her race or gender but her campaign was way more genZ female-coded than Hillary's. The whole "brat" thing and calling Trump/Vance weird turned off a lot of men. Then they produced the most estrogen inciting men for Harris, including white "dudes" for Harris, and the one calling men cowards for not wanting to vote women.

Kamala was just an empty suit and was unable to discuss policy either unlike Hillary. Her superficial knowledge of the issues demonstrated how vastly unqualified she was. Her going on friendly media like the View and Colbert then saying she wouldn't be different than Joe Biden was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.

Hillary now goes to sleep at night knowing that she is no longer the worst performing Dem in the rust belt anymore.

It's funny that both Hillary and Biden are probably happy that Harris lost.

[Del Tachi]

Hillary Clinton got to run under a better economy and more popular Democrat incumbent, so I'd say her campaign she's worse.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

Harris, she picked a weak VP in Walz but Kaine was already a natl figure

[Trends Are Fake]

Hillary by far. She blew a winning position, Kamala merely didn't claw back enough ground from a losing position she was dropped in.

[Samof94]

Hillary by far. She blew a winning position, Kamala merely didn't claw back enough ground from a losing position she was dropped in.

Kamala was basically salvaging a damaged campaign.

[EastOfEden]

Hillary by far. She blew a winning position, Kamala merely didn't claw back enough ground from a losing position she was dropped in.

Yes, her campaign was worse, but at the same time, I feel like this election vindicates her in a way. That Harris could run a more clearly targeted and organized campaign and still lose. In a much less favorable environment, yes, but still.

Really, they had the same fundamental failing: A lack of awareness - not completely their fault, but significantly so - of how the ground was shifting under their feet.

I do think Harris had a certain "femininity problem" that Clinton didn't, which was responsible for some of the way the ground shifted for her. Clinton was just all "elect the first female president! yay!," which is something almost anyone can support. Even my dad, a lifelong Republican (very partisan, but moderate, voted third party in 2016), commented that he liked the fact that we could get our first female president, called it "a sign of progress," even if he personally didn't like her. Meanwhile, Harris's campaign was, as others have said, "incredibly gen Z female coded" or something to that effect. It's hard to put into words, but there's a particular type of not-super-political-but-does-pay-some-attention teen-twentysomething guy who I find it really hard to picture supporting Harris - or, at least, hard to picture actually going out to vote for her rather than merely preferring a Harris victory. But they're still decidedly culturally liberal, and very numerous and only getting more so. This is like "the archetypal conventionally-masculine-but-not-toxically-masculine chill Gen Z guy." There are tons of them, tons. I went and picked up dinner last night and every employee in the restaurant was this type of guy. I suspect there are a whole lot of Biden 2020-didn't vote 2024 voters in there, or Biden 2020-Trump 2024 but voted for D incumbents downballot.

Related, I still think the "Harris late momentum" was real - it simply wasn't enough. I think we were heading for a catastrophe before that. Maybe she would have done better if the election were held a week later? Kind of a Gerald Ford in 1976 situation, closing the gap but not fast enough.

[VALibertarian]

Hm it's honestly a tough call - I agree in general with the poster above that while Harris tried to avoid playing into the identity politics the way Hillary did (Let's elect the first female president!) her campaign still was inundated with the "gen Z feminism" that I can be extremely offputting to a lot of voters.

Both campaigns made a lot of relatively minor mistakes in retrospect but I'm not sure either made a huge error that really sunk them - arguably the Comey investigation blunting the Trump scandal in the last week of 2016 was a fatal blow, but that's not really due to a mistake on the part of the Clinton Campaign. On the flipside it doesn't seem like any one big thing sunk Harris - it was a combo of the fundamental macro environment (Economy and Biden Dropout) being too big to overcome and all their attacks on Trump just failing to stick.

I think Objectively I'll say Hillary ran a slightly better campaign given that I believe with a few minor changes to the timeline she would have won. Whereas we can say looking at it probably starting from the VP debate there was nothing Harris could have done to win.

[Eraserhead]

Definitely Hillary although Kamala gave her a run for her money in the last month and a half.

[Progressive Pessimist]

The reality is Trump got more popular at each election. It should have been the other way around, but it wasn't.

Maybe not personally popular, but definitely more legitimized, unfortunately. Americans seem too willing to look past the infinite downsides of him.