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“He has no words. And people are kind of explaining to him, same thing with her. And she’s like, are you sure? Have we done a recount? Should we do a recount?”
This wasn’t just a miscalculation—it was a full-on misread of the political landscape. The Harris camp, according to the book, went into election night convinced they had the edge. They were buoyed by crowds, fundraising success, and the illusion of momentum. But behind the scenes, there was more wishful thinking than hard strategy.
“They thought that they were going to win. And so, you know, when they come back now and say, ‘Oh, no, we didn’t really have a chance.’ No, that’s not what they were thinking. They thought they were going to win,” Parnes explained.
It’s a tale of overconfidence and poor judgment—one that ultimately left staffers disillusioned and bitter. As the authors describe, Harris and her team appeared to have convinced themselves that all signs pointed to victory.
“Kamala Harris was looking at her crowd size, and they felt like the vibe was strong and people were saying, ‘Oh, we have more boots on the ground. We’re doing better in fundraising,’” Parnes shared. “And she bought all of that. She bought the hype, and so did a lot of people in the campaign.”
In the aftermath of the defeat, Harris reportedly pointed fingers, suggesting to friends that the timing of the election—and Joe Biden’s decision to enter the race—hurt her chances. According to the authors, Harris believed she could have pulled off a win if the election had been held later or if she had jumped in sooner.
“She could have won, she told friends, if only the election was later in the calendar — or she got in earlier. In other words, Joe Biden was to blame.”
But not everyone in her circle agreed. One friend flat-out rejected the theory: “That is f—ing bonkers.”
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Despite pulling in 226 electoral votes to Trump’s 312 and landing just 1.5% behind in the popular vote (48.3% vs. Trump’s 49.8%), the Harris campaign never had the traction it believed it did. While the margin may have been close on paper, the psychological blow was enormous.
Harris’s defeat wasn’t just political—it was personal. She believed she was on the path to victory, backed by the echo chamber of her campaign’s own optimism. But the hard reality of election night snapped that illusion fast.
Now, as details continue to emerge, the Harris-Walz campaign is shaping up to be a textbook case of political miscalculation, where emotion, crowd sizes, and fundraising were mistaken for votes in the bag. And in the end, it seems Harris wasn’t just defeated—she was blindsided.
