Dan Morain: Former LA Times Editor on Kamala Harris' loss to Donald Trump in the US Election

The man who "wrote the book" on Kamala Harris says the Democrats would have been in a worse position without her. 

The Democratic Party has lost the 2024 Election, Kamala Harris falling short as Donald Trump claimed more than the 270 Electoral votes needed to secure the presidency. 

CNN is also projecting that the Republican Party will control the Senate, though the House is still up for grabs.  

Former LA Times Editor Dan Morain —who wrote a biography of Harris— told Mike Hosking Harris has raised more than a billion dollars for the cause. 

“Money doesn’t always determine the outcome, but it sure helps.” 

“And she had this incredible ‘get out to vote’ effort in the swing states, and [Trump] was relying on something that was much less organised than what the Democrats did.” 

Morain says that Harris ran as good a race as she possibly could have run in the three months she had.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A tremendous amount of soul searching. Now for the Democrats,
of course, a one term president defeat to a bloke
they told you should never ever be anywhere near power
ever again, and yet America could not agree less, it seems.
Former Lay Times editor and author of Camel's Way in
American Life, Dan Marine's with us. Dan, very good morning
to you, Well, good morning to you. Were you surprised?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, I thought, well, I certainly thought it would be
closer than it is. And I actually thought Harris was
going to win, you know, but do I know?

Speaker 1 (00:32):
But yeah, Well, based on what.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, I thought, she had momentum. So here are a
couple things that I thought, really, we're gonna tip it.
She raised over a billion dollars to his less than
four hundred million dollars. Now, money doesn't always determine the outcome,
but it sure helps. And she had this incredible get

(00:58):
out the vote effort in the swing states, and he
was relying on something that was much less organized than
what the Democrats did. So and those were the two
factors that I thought met that she was more likely
than not to win. And also there was that poll

(01:19):
out of Iowa over the weekend that showed her winning
and I thought that that was that would be quite telling.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, anyways, it was right.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Again, what do I know? I thought Hillary Clinton was
going to win in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
That was different. It's funny that because it's one of
the sort of seminal moments of my life. I happened
to be in Manhattan at the jab At Center in sixteen,
and it was different to the extent. People didn't just
think Clinton was going to win. She was going to win.
She was going to be the first woman president, and
they just could not get their head around it that
she didn't whereas I suspect this time, yeah, you wanted

(01:54):
her to win. Yeah, she could win, but it wasn't
the same thing. Is that fair?

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah? Well, I was an editorial page editor at a
regional paper in Sacramento, b and wrote the editorial welcoming
Hillary Clinton as the next president, and before that ran,
of course, he won Trump one and I had to
rewrite it and welcome Trump as ex president. So yeah,
people were absolutely convinced this was close. You know, this

(02:24):
was close, and I mean certainly until last week I
thought it was a toss up, and then but over
the weekend it came to conclude that, well, she was
more likely than not to win. But you know, again,
what do I know? These are You know, we are
such a divided country. We're not the only one. You know,
there is this populous move in many countries around the nation.

(02:49):
It's kind of surprising that it's here, but here we are.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, what's your view, by the way, and I'm glad
you're on the program, given what's happening with the Washington
Post in the LA Times. What's your view with an endorsement?
Is that now done as a thing at election time?

Speaker 2 (03:05):
No, it's not. But I also think that that how
one endorses in a presidential campaign really doesn't matter. People
have so much information they know who they're going to
vote for for president. But on down the ballot, you know,
we vote for judges here, we vote for school board members. Here,
we vote for you know, all kinds of offices, and

(03:27):
in those instances, a newspaper, a news organization endorsement really
does matter, but less so for president. I don't exactly
understand the thinking of Patrick Sunscheng, the owner of the
Los Angeles Times, or Jeff Bezos, the owner of the

(03:49):
Washington Post, what their motivation was they say it was journalistic.
I wonder whether there was some business reason. These news
organizations are not their main business interests as you know.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
No exactly, but I'll said, there's a credibility issue with
the media anyway, and endorsement doesn't help. You would disagree
with that.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, it's not as if the Washington Post is going
to be viewed as a pro Trump news organization. It's
it's it's highly critical. It's columnists or by and large,
very critical of Trump. So you know, it's viewed as
a liberal news organization. You know, it's news. It's news
is the news, but it also has the reputation of

(04:37):
being liberal. I don't know. Maybe there may be something
to that, but I don't think that was the real reason.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Having written Kamala's why in American life? Will they pin
it on Kamala? Will they pin it on Biden? Will
they pin it on both of them? Or can they
pin it on the democratic view of the world in general?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, you know, we're gonna are going to be picking
over this for for months, if not years. What what
what happened in this election? You know, I think Kamala
Harris ran as good a race as she possibly could
have run in a three month period of time. You know,
Joe Biden stuck it out until until he couldn't stick

(05:21):
it out any longer and then pulled out. You know,
maybe who knows, Maybe if he had pulled out early,
if he had announced two years ago that he wasn't
going to run for reelection, there would have been an
open primary and on the Democratic side, and they would
have found it out. Nobody knows yet. There are you know,

(05:42):
Trump ran on the economy and and things do cost
more today than they did four years ago. Now there
are a bunch of reasons for that, but his argument
was that he will be better for the economy and
and you know, people vote their pocket book. That's certainly
the case. That clearly were not thinking about Ukraine when

(06:04):
they went into the voting booth. By and large, is
that that you know, that's going to be a huge,
big result. I think fallout from this election.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
One of a number I suspective, Dan, listen, I appreciate
talking to you. Nice to meet with you. Dan Moraine,
who is the former La Times editor and author of
Carmela's Way in American Lives. For more from the Mic,
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