“There just was not enough done to really nail that message,” she said of the Harris campaign. “They could have had more message discipline. They didn’t have bad policy but they didn’t really feature the policy they had that would have hit the spot for these voters.”
Authentic Trump
By contrast, Mattinson said, nobody could be in any doubt about Trump’s message. Swing voters believed he would “make America great again,” as he continually promised to do, she added: “He talked about the things they wanted to hear about. He talked about immigration and he talked about the cost of living.” Trump was seen as “strong”, “positive,” “authentic” and patriotic.
That analysis is broadly shared by another former Starmer adviser — Claire Ainsley, director of the Project on Center-Left Renewal at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. She said Trump’s victory “reflects the strategic challenge of the center-left globally, which is that their traditional base has felt in recent years that they don’t reflect their values and interests any more.”
“The U.K. Labour Party is one of the few examples of a modern center-left party that has managed to win an election — including winning back sizable chunks of that working-class vote, along with the more liberal middle-class, which has been pulling towards center-left parties anyway,” Ainsley said. “The victory for Trump clearly means that that challenge is as pressing now as it was when it first arose many years ago. And Labour do offer some of the ingredients of what center-left parties need to do.”
But the defeat for the Democrats also contained a warning for Labour, she added. “If you don’t get the politics of that right in government, then voters won’t come back and elect you for a second term.”
“Landslide: The Inside Story of the 2024 Election”, by Tim Ross and Rachel Wearmouth, is published by Biteback on November 21.