Kamala Concedes & Media Blame Game | 11.7.24
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Vice President Kamala Harris accepts the election of Donald Trump, but vows to keep fighting for her agenda. The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for. Why did the vice president wait so long and how did the president-elect respond?

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, November 7th, and this is Morning Wire. Despite a historic electoral rebuke, the legacy media clings to old narratives about a dangerous Trump presidency.

So why do you think that uneducated white women voted against their reproductive health freedoms? And why do you think Latino men voted in favor of someone that says he's going to deport the majority of his community? And polls once again underestimated Trump's support, which expanded among several groups. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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Visit ResponsibleMan.com and use code WIRE for 30% off plus an additional $9 off your first order. That's ResponsibleMan.com, code WIRE. Amid criticism over failing to address her supporters on election night, Vice President Kamala Harris gave prepared remarks yesterday afternoon in which she conceded the election to Donald Trump but promised to keep fighting for her agenda. Here's what she said.

Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo. Hey, Amanda. So a lengthy wait for Harris's concession speech after the race was called several hours before. But before the speech, there was also a call. Walk us through what happened here. Right. So the controversy started on election night. Harris was supposed to speak to her supporters gathered at a watch party at Howard University, her alma mater. But she scrapped the speech after it became clear that she had no path to victory.

The co-chair of her campaign was marched out to the outdoor podium after midnight to let supporters know that they would not be hearing from Harris. Critics have pointed out that that moment was reminiscent of how Hillary Clinton handled her loss to Trump in 2016. Clinton also neglected to speak to her supporters. Instead, she trotted out her chairman, John Podesta, to speak before that somber crowd. Right, a pretty famous moment there. So after more outlets called the race, Harris did end up reaching out to Trump.

Yes, according to an email sent to campaign staffers, Harris called Trump to tell him that she would work with President Biden to ensure a, quote, "...peaceful transfer of power, unlike what we saw in 2020." The VP also apparently made clear that she hopes Trump will be a president for all Americans.

The Trump campaign confirmed that call took place, but they struck a different tone about it. They said Trump acknowledged Harris on her strength, professionalism, and tenacity throughout the campaign, and said both Trump and Harris agreed on the importance of unifying the country. All right, so some different framing of how that call went. Then we finally get the concession speech yesterday afternoon at Howard. What did we hear from Harris?

Well, we heard some mixed messaging. She walked out with her characteristic big smile, but then things got rather dark at some points. Most importantly, she did say directly that she concedes the election and will participate in a peaceful transfer of power. But like the campaign email, she did so with a lot of obvious shots at the one who did win the race, Donald Trump.

Along with many tearful faces, including her running mates, Tim Walz, there were loud boos from her supporters when she mentioned Trump. Here are a few moments. Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition.

She also emphasized that she and her supporters would not stop fighting. While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign. Harris also made clear that she is not happy about the results and painted a very dark picture of what's to come under the new administration. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time.

But for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. I think it's fair to say the speech was more contentious than we're used to hearing. Here's how Kayleigh McEnany, Trump's former press secretary, framed it. The only thing she had in common with Hillary Clinton was it was a 12-minute speech. The absent line was, I hope that he will be a successful president. That is what Hillary said. We did not get that today.

One bitter footnote here, Harris as sitting VP, she will oversee Congress's ceremonial certification of Trump's election win on January 6th. I'm sure the irony will not be lost on anyone. Meanwhile, we have an official concession here. Amanda, thanks for reporting. What's the secret sauce behind wildly successful businesses? It's not great products or brilliant marketing. It's the unsung hero, the business behind the business. For millions of entrepreneurs, that hero is Shopify.

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Joining us now to discuss is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham. So in 2016, when Trump's win shocked the media, I do remember there were some major outlets that did respond by acknowledging that this could be an invitation for curiosity and some reflection. That obviously didn't last very long. But then this time he won with a decisive popular vote mandate. And I think that's a really important thing.

Are we seeing any signs that they might be learning this time around? You know, with the exception of a few Republican commentators within some of these outlets, I have to say not really. The New York Times headline covering Trump's victory was this. So, Trump storms back stunning return to power after a dark and defiant campaign. And then their analysis claimed that Trump, and I'm quoting here,

conquered the nation not by force but with a permission slip. And they said that America stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248-year history. So, you know, fairly stark language. And then CNN also used that same phrasing, Trump storms back. So I think it's fair to say that that's pretty divisive framing, obviously calling up images of dictators, right?

On MSNBC, several hosts said that Americans elected Trump because they're driven by racism and or misogyny. Host Joy Reid expressed a lot of anger with white women in particular, who she said did not turn out for Harris as they should have. And then this was host Joe Scarborough eviscerating American voters while talking with fellow MSNBC host Al Sharpton.

But it's not just misogyny from white men. It's misogyny from Hispanic men. It's misogyny from black men. Things we've all been talking about. Who do not want a woman leading them. Might be race issues with Hispanics. They don't want a black woman as president of the United States. You know, the Democratic Party, I've always found, when you're sitting around talking, they love to just sort of

balkanize everybody into these separate groups. You and I have talked about this before.

A lot of Hispanic voters have problems with black candidates. CNN's post-election analysis from David Axelrod was almost identical to that. Let's be honest about this, okay? Let's be absolutely blunt about it. There were appeals to racism in this campaign, and there is racial bias in this country, and there is sexism in this country. And anybody who thinks that that did not in any way impact on the outcome of this race is wrong.

Now, how much of this commentary focused on the issues that voters said were important? Things like inflation, jobs, crime, illegal immigration?

Okay, a little bit. So the Washington Post didn't call for that reflection that you mentioned, but their coverage has been surprisingly measured. And I do think part of that could very well be owner Jeff Bezos' influence. He wouldn't allow the outlet to endorse Harris. He wrote an op-ed acknowledging that the American people don't trust the media, and he said that's a massive problem. And he publicly congratulated Trump on his win. The Post's headline was simply, Trump triumphs.

And then one other notable exception, CNN commentator Scott Jennings, who is a Republican. Well, he did try to rein in his colleagues and get them to focus on some of those issues you brought up, Georgia. I think I'm interpreting the results tonight as the revenge of just the regular old working class American, the anonymous American who has been crushed, insulted, condescended to. They're not garbage.

They're not Nazis. They're just regular people who get up and go to work every day and are trying to make a better life for their kids. And they feel like they have been told to just shut up when they have complained about the things that are hurting them in their own lives. So far, though, not much sign that the legacy media is hearing this. Well, and until they do, they're not going to get the trust back of the people. Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime.

Trump's electoral victory is reminiscent of his 2016 election in many ways, including the fact that many polls leading up to Election Day underestimated his broad appeal. Here to look at what went wrong in the polling is Daily Wire deputy managing editor Tim Rice.

So, Tim, obviously a lot to dig through here. What would you say were the biggest polling errors this cycle? Well, Georgia, we have to start with a big one that sparked a bunch of headlines. Ann Seltzer, hailed as the best pollster in politics, predicted a few days before the election that Kamala Harris had a three-point lead over Trump in Iowa. People took that as a sign that Trump might implode on Election Day because he won Iowa in both 2016 and 2020.

But when the dust settled, Trump not only won the state, he blew Harris away. Seltzer's poll ended up being off by 16 points. The mistake was so bad, Seltzer has now pledged to reevaluate her polling model. Another widely respected pollster, Nate Silver, chose to poll his polling model early in the night because he said it wasn't, quote, capturing the story of this election night well. Earlier in the day, Silver had announced that the race was basically a toss-up.

As we reported, while some of the margins were close in a few swing states, it ended up being an electoral blowout. In Nevada, the final average of the polls presented by RealClearPolitics gave Trump less than a point edge. He ended up winning it by about five. The polling averages in both Wisconsin and Michigan gave Harris about a half point lead. Trump ended up winning both of the states by one or more points. In Florida and Texas, Trump was giving an eight to nine point advantage in the polls, but ended up winning by 13 and 14 points respectively.

So some major underestimation of the Trump vote yet again. So the third cycle in a row that we saw systematic bias undercounting in Trump's support. Right. Now, I want to talk about the exit polls. We're just now learning about how each candidate performed with a variety of different demographic groups. What did we see there? Well, we see that Trump gained a lot of ground among minority groups that usually swing for Democrats.

He won about 13% of the black vote and 45% of the Hispanic vote, up from the 8% and 32% he won from each group in 2020. Breaking that down a little further, we see that Trump won 20% of black men, a trend we started seeing in the last days of campaign and something that Barack Obama and others scrambled to reverse.

The Hispanic vote is also notable given the freak out about comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's Puerto Rico joke at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally, which the media strongly suggested would doom Trump among Hispanic voters. All right, well, not even close. I mean, a pro-Trump candidate ended up winning the governorship in Puerto Rico. Exactly. So is the big takeaway here that Trump won because he cut into this minority vote? Yeah, absolutely. If we look at the whole board, we see the Democrats pretty much have an advantage with the female vote, while Republicans have the male vote in equal numbers, literally.

Trump won 54% of men and Harris won 54% of women. So that doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. But pretty much every other demographic is inching towards Trump. For instance, he won 51% of Americans 45 or older, while Harris won 53% of voters 18 to 44. But the biggest warning sign for Dems is that Trump is making serious inroads among younger voters. And how much of a change did we see since 2020?

According to this polling, Trump went up 10 points with young voters and 14 points with men under 30. He also went up 6 points among Hispanics and 7 points among Black voters, once again largely driven by the men in each group. And virtually all of the gains Trump made with Black voters, both male and female, came from young voters.

Critics have also noted that the Harris campaign's decision to repeatedly criticize men probably hurt her campaign. Now, we heard a lot about the faith vote. Where did that end up landing? Things get interesting when you break voters down by religion. Trump gained 10 points with Catholics since 2020 and ended up winning that group by 9 points.

He won with Protestants by 22 points, likely a reflection of his decision to fight on culture war issues like transgender politics. Meanwhile, Harris won Jewish voters by 34 points, notable considering her criticism of Israel, but that was down from Biden's 38 points. Another shocking statistic, Trump won 20% of self-identified LGBT voters, which seems to confirm J.D. Vance's prediction that he and Trump would prevail among, quote, normal gays.

All in all, Harris only notably improved her party's margin in 58 counties in the nation out of 4,600. Trump, on the other hand, increased his margin in well over 1,000 counties. On that note, Trump gained in 49 out of 50 states with swings of 12 points in New York and California and high single-digit swings throughout most of the Northeast, Texas, Illinois, and Florida. Well, to quote Jake Tapper on CNN, holy smokes. Tim, thanks for reporting. Anytime.

Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.