About a week before the final day of the election, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial titled, “A Harris Victory Means the Fourth Term of Obama.” Although Kamala Harris failed her bid for the U.S. presidency spectacularly on Tuesday, the biggest losers of the 2024 election were the Obamas. 

No one has had more influence on the Democrat Party in the last decade than the Obamas. The Democrat Party used to be a place working-class Americans called home. It was sympathetic to kitchen-table issues such as how soaring crime and food and gas prices affected ordinary Americans’ quality of life. 

But under President Obama’s leadership, the Democrat Party has been transformed into one dominated by what I refer to as “liberal coastal elites.” These are individuals who reside in affluent coastal areas, often with leftist political views, and have embraced most radical left-wing social and economic policies.

The elites openly despise nearly half of the country that disagrees with them. They have insisted on pushing radical policies from open borders to a Green New Deal to make themselves feel morally superior while ignoring the plight of ordinary Americans who have to endure the high cost of living and soaring crime as a result. Democrat elites have also been eager to appease America’s foreign adversaries, such as Iran, out of contempt for America’s “imperial power.” 

The Biden-Harris administration was essentially President Obama’s third term, filled with former Obama administration operatives, from Susan Rice to John Kerry, and it was quick to resume Obama’s domestic and international policies. 

For instance, the Biden-Harris administration rejoined the Paris Climate Accord — which was originally joined by President Obama in 2016 — after President Trump had withdrawn from it due to its estimated significant harm to the U.S. economy. The Biden administration also resumed the appeasement policy to Iran by lifting economic sanctions, hoping to entice the mullahs into rejoining Obama’s deeply flawed 2015 nuclear deal. As Mark Dubowitz wrote in Tablet, the deal was considered “one of the worst unforced strategic errors in the history of U.S. foreign policy,” because it has failed to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambition. The Iranian regime, flush with cash, has been able to fund its proxies to cause serious harm to the U.S. military, our allies, and international commerce. 

President Obama, a figure of immense influence, was a key player in downplaying Joe Biden’s noticeable mental and physical deterioration. After Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, Obama dismissed concerns about Biden’s decline, characterizing his poor showing as merely a “bad debate night.” However, Obama’s public support was not just a dismissal of concerns, it was a significant factor that helped silence the call to replace Biden as the Democrat Party’s presidential nominee. 

Yet, a few weeks later, as it became apparent that Biden was unlikely to win the election after his infirmity became too obvious to deny, the same Democrat Party establishment that gaslighted the American public for three years that Biden was “sharp” pulled a “soft coup” by replacing him with Vice President Kamala Harris and ignoring the more than 14 million Democrats who voted for Biden during the party’s primary. This swap wouldn’t have occurred without Obama’s blessing. Obama later attempted to absolve his responsibility in the undemocratic ousting of Biden by praising Biden as a “patriot of the highest order” for withdrawing his reelection bid, which further insulted Democrat voters and the Biden family.

After getting Biden out of the way, the Obamas, with their unparalleled influence, identified Harris as the torchbearer of their leftist legacy. The Wall Street Journal aptly noted that Harris was “running for what essentially would be Barack Obama’s fourth progressive term.” The Obamas, in a display of their kingmaker status within the Democrat Party, resoundingly endorsed Harris at the Democratic National Convention.

Harris — who, according to one NBC News poll, had “the lowest net negative rating for a vice president in the history of the poll” — experienced a dramatic shift in public perception following Obama’s endorsement. Her favorability rating soared after the DNC convention, even surpassing Trump’s in some polls, marking a historic moment in U.S. politics.

Obama couldn’t hide his contempt when it appeared that Harris was losing support among male voters. He scolded a group of black male voters during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state. Obama told them it was “not acceptable” not to vote in the election and accused them of not “feeling the idea of having a woman as president” while ignoring all the policy failures under the Biden-Harris administration, from high inflations to rising crime rates.

A few days later, it was Michele Obama’s turn to admonish male voters, warning that their voting choices could put women’s lives in danger. She claimed without evidence that, if elected, Trump would ban abortion nationwide (Trump never endorsed a national abortion ban). She chastised the male voters by painting a very dark picture: “I am asking you, from the core of my being, to take our lives seriously. … Let me tell you all, to think that the men that we love could be either unaware or indifferent to our plight is simply heartbreaking. … So fellas, before you cast your vote, ask yourselves: What side of history do you want to be on?”

If the Obamas thought they could condemn and insult American men into submission, they had a rude awakening on Election Day. As The Wall Street Journal reported, exit polls show that “Trump won 18- to 29-year-old men by 13 percentage points, securing 55% of that group compared with 42% for Kamala Harris.” Trump also won 15 percent of black and 41 percent of Hispanic votes, a jump from the 8 percent of black and 35 percent of Hispanic votes he took in 2020.

To add insult to injury, Trump also beat Harris in Pennsylvania. The Obamas’ admonishment of male voters backfired, as more Americans are sick and tired of the couple’s constant dressing down and showing little tolerance for disagreement. In some ways, voters chose Trump as a rejection of the Obamas’ brand of leftism.

Harris was an uninspiring presidential candidate in 2019 and accomplished little as the vice president. Her word salad-filled interviews showed she hasn’t become a better candidate nor an effective leader. If not for the Obamas, Harris would never have become the Democrat Party’s presidential nominee. The biggest loser on Tuesday wasn’t Harris but the Obamas.