We don’t know yet who will win Tuesday’s election and be sworn into office in January. Still, there are already some clear winners and losers in this year’s cycle. Let’s start with the winners:
Television networks
More than $10.5 billion was spent on advertising this season, with the bulk of it on television. Ad spending is up a billion dollars from 2020, barely more than a 10% increase in the four most inflationary years since the 1970s, making political advertising a bargain compared to the price increases for groceries. Democrats spent $5 billion on ads compared to $4.1 for Republicans. In 23 states, voters were bombarded with more than $100 million worth of ads. Pennsylvania stands out as the top winner with more than $1.5 billion in ad spending, the first time any state has topped the billion-dollar mark.
Social media
For the first time, podcasters and influencers were treated as equals to traditional media by presidential campaigns and candidates. The numbers explain why: 54% of all adults said they regularly look to social media for news, while 40% of young adults said they routinely turn to TikTok for their news. Changes in news consumption are even more pronounced with Gen Z. Sixty-three percent use social media for news at least once a week. That’s why political ad spending is gravitating toward social media. Future Forward, a pro-Harris PAC, spent $225 million on digital ads this cycle.
African American men
For the first time in recent memory, instead of taking black males’ votes for granted, the Democratic Party is actually paying attention to them. True, much of this attention has centered on the Obamas and other surrogates hectoring and shaming black men, as if failing to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris equates to betraying their racial identity. When this blatant appeal to racial solidarity fell flat, the Harris campaign pivoted in mid-October to an “economic opportunity agenda for Black men.” Now that both major parties are competing for their allegiance, this sector of the electorate can expect its clout to grow.
Associated Press
This legacy news agency deserves a Pulitzer Prize for revealing the truth about President Joe Biden’s “garbage” remark. In an election season in which almost every legacy media outlet has been brazenly one-sided in its coverage, the Associated Press dug deep into Biden’s denigration of Trump supporters as “garbage.” With inside tips and copies of White House emails to back it up, the outlet exposed how the White House Press Office and Oval Office doctored Biden’s remarks to seem like a rebuke of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who joked that Puerto Rico was an island of floating garbage, instead of a slur on Trump’s supporters.
State and local government
Former President Ronald Reagan was a great fan of federalism, which holds as its chief doctrine that government is best when it is close to the people. He championed the devolution of federal programs and bringing funding back to the states through block grants. Gallup’s latest poll of Americans’ view of government supports Reagan’s vision. Only 37% of adults said they think the federal government is best at handling domestic problems, while 55% believe state government is more capable, and 67% have faith in local government. If Tuesday’s winner wants to invigorate federalism and devolve power to state and local governments, the public is ready.
Women and girls sports
When Italian boxer Angela Carini withdrew from the Paris Olympics this summer, she ignited a burning controversy in female sports that is playing out in this election cycle. From school board races to the House and Senate, the matter of biological males competing in female sports is front and center. It has been featured in political advertising, debates, and media interviews. In mid-October, a majority of the players on the University of Nevada, Reno’s womens volleyball team voted not to play a match against San Jose State because of a biological male on its team. Instead of blacklisting the female players, UNR backed them up. The backlash against males competing in female sports has only just begun, making female athletes winners this election cycle.
Now for some losers:
Legacy media
It’s hard to know where to begin with this category. Legacy media’s decline since the advent of the internet seems bottomless. Gallup reported that trust in the media has continued to plummet. Sixty-nine percent of adults said they don’t have confidence in legacy media, making it the “least trusted institution” in its polling. A mere 31% of Americans have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence, a majority of whom are Democrats. Republicans and independents are deeply skeptical of traditional media, a steep drop from the 1970s when 68% to 72% of Americans trusted the media to report accurately and fairly. No wonder traditional media is losing ground to podcasters, influencers, and Substack.
The Cheneys
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Republican Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, are losers no matter who wins the presidency. If former President Donald Trump wins, the Cheneys will be forgotten. However, if Harris wins, they’ll be responsible not only for Trump’s loss but also for the results of Harris’s unbridled policies. The Cheneys won’t be forgiven if Harris gives us four more years of Biden’s agenda, and if Liz Cheney becomes the token Republican in a Harris Cabinet, she’ll be even more accountable for a second term of emboldened progressive activism.
Mark Cuban
When Cuban attacked Trump’s female supporters as feeble airheads, he branded himself not only as an elite male chauvinist but simultaneously revealed his ignorance. Days after Cuban’s gratuitous insult to the women who served in Trump’s Cabinet and White House during the first term, the Wall Street Journal gave the journalistic equivalent of the middle finger to Cuban by running a front-page profile of Susie Wiles, Trump’s campaign manager and mastermind of his political comeback. (Full disclosure: I had a passing acquaintance with Lanny Wiles, Ms. Wiles’s ex-husband, when all three of us worked in the White House during Reagan’s first term.) Cuban’s misogynistic outburst may not cost him his seat on Shark Tank, but it won’t boost the show’s ratings either.
60 Minutes
Whether or not Trump will collect a penny in his $10 billion suit against CBS, the network’s popular 60 Minutes franchise is a loser. The show’s producers allegedly edited Harris’s interview to make her answers seem more coherent. In the past, CBS has released full transcripts of its interviews, but in Harris’s case, it refused to disclose the unredacted transcript. The longer CBS fights the suit, the more attention it draws, leaving viewers to form their own conclusions about the show’s credibility.
Then there’s the ultimate loser of 2024:
Biden
Biden entered office with pretensions to be revered as a transformational president, such as former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, he will leave as one of the biggest losers since former President Jimmy Carter. With an approval rating of 38.2, Biden’s presidency is on track to eclipse the low-water mark for presidential approval set by Carter 44 years ago. Biden’s one-and-only term of office has given us the worst inflation since Carter, an increase in homicides and other violent crimes, an unparalleled immigration crisis, a flood of antisemitism, smash-and-grab rings looting upscale department stores, and a runaway hard-left progressive wing of the Democratic Party bent on dictating every aspect of American life.
Internationally, Biden’s legacy includes ending former President Barack Obama’s “war of necessity” and nation-building in Afghanistan with a humiliating withdrawal that restored the Taliban to power. Our enemies are now on the advance from Ukraine to the Middle East. Biden’s failure to increase defense spending to counter the growing threat from China makes the 1970s “window of vulnerability” phrase regarding the Soviet Union once again relevant. His successor will inherit all these problems.
However, the ultimate stamp of his being a loser is Biden’s own party dumped him from the ticket. That can’t have been an easy feat for Democratic insiders to pull off. As anyone with aging relatives knows, it’s hard enough to convince grandpa that the time has come to give up his car keys, let alone compel a stubborn octogenarian, such as Biden, to surrender the presidency. Unable to control himself late in the campaign, “Angry Joe” attacked Trump supporters, calling at least 74 million Americans “garbage” and then trying to conceal his contempt for the political opposition by having the White House press office issue a phony transcript of his remarks. In so doing, Biden further trashed his pathetic presidential legacy.
If Harris loses, don’t expect Biden to leave the stage quietly. He’ll be bitter and vengeful and will spend every day from now until Jan. 20 issuing regulations and executive orders intended to hamstring Trump.
If he follows in Carter’s footsteps, Biden’s team will trash the White House on its way out the door. I was in the White House in January 1981. Carter’s staff had left half-eaten sandwiches in desk draws, ashtrays brimming with cigarette butts, brochures and bound government reports scattered all around offices, as well as damaged furniture, walls, and paint.
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John B. Roberts II is a former political strategist and executive producer of The McLaughlin Group. His latest book is Reagan’s Cowboys: Inside the 1984 Reelection Campaign’s Secret Operation Against Geraldine Ferraro. His website is jbrobertsauthor.com
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
