photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Anita Dunn, a former senior advisor to President Joe Biden, was among the panelists at the Dole Institute of Politics Post Election Conference on Dec. 11, 2024.

Here’s the thing about the recently completed presidential election: The problem for Democrats is rooted in a misunderstanding of the 2020 elections, where Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.

“Any Democrat would have won that election,” Chuck Todd, the chief political analyst for NBC News and past host of “Meet the Press,” told a Lawrence crowd on Wednesday as part of the Dole Institute of Politics’ 2024 Post Election Conference.

Biden thought he had won some sort of mandate from the American public, Todd argued, rather than recognizing people simply were voting against Trump, whose approval ratings were at historic lows.

“The Trump people may be doing the same thing now,” Todd said.

Indeed, it was an afternoon full of armchair quarterbacking at the Dole Institute — but the chairs were full of both national media members who covered the campaigns and several aides who assisted with the Biden, Harris and Trump campaigns.

The consensus was that Democrats had a tough task in front of them to win the presidential election, but that Kamala Harris gave the party a better chance than Biden. Alex Latcham, director of congressional engagement for Trump’s campaign, said when Biden was in the race, the Trump campaign had solid polls that showed both Minnesota and Virginia — two Democratic-heavy states — were within Trump’s reach.

Molly Murphy, a pollster who worked with the Harris campaign, didn’t get as specific, but acknowledged the electoral map with Biden as the candidate was getting pretty fluid. When Harris entered the race, both aides agreed that the race became closer, and boiled down to what has become a familiar set of about seven battleground states that would decide the election.

While Harris was able to stop the bleeding, she wasn’t able to engage as a full-fledged fighter, several panelists said. Come to find out, that may have been what the voters were seeking.

Todd said it was striking that Trump entered the race as a convicted felon, but so many voters didn’t seem to care — or touted how he battled the charges as a selling point.

“There is a fine line between being a criminal and a fighter, and Trump used that line,” Todd said.

Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, said many Democratic strategists may have overestimated how much Trump’s legal problems would turn off voters. The reason: Those strategists underestimated how strongly the American public believes all politicians are crooks.

“There is going to be a surprising number of voters who believes that term ‘criminal’ describes a lot of politicians,” Ball said. “That cynicism does give him a little bit of permission and ties up his opponents.”

It turned out that many voters were fine with the criminal cases against Trump, as long as they thought he was going to be a fighter, and fight on their side, several panelists said. And there was one moment that encapsulated that, even though it was far from a planned campaign moment: the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pa.

Both Republican and Democratic panelists agreed the aftermath had a meaningful impact on the mindset of voters.

“It solidified an image very, very concretely of Donald Trump as a fighter,” said Latcham, the Trump campaign aide.

Anita Dunn, who was a longtime senior adviser to Biden, said that image of Trump with his fist in the air immediately following the shots was particularly powerful as it circulated throughout social media to many young male voters who ended up moving toward Trump.

“In a close race, this is something that people really kept coming back to — an image of a fighter,” she said. “That image was everywhere. It was a powerful image for voters.”

If Harris would have had more time — perhaps another 30 days — she maybe could have won the race, Todd said. But Ball said that type of thinking might be another example of misreading the American voter. Ball noted that Harris was ahead in the polls following the Democratic convention, and then started falling as the race stretched on.

“I think” Ball said, “she would have done better if she had 30 fewer days.”

The Dole Institute of Politics on KU’s West Campus has hosted a post election conference following each presidential election since 2004, often bringing in top political consultants and journalists from across the country. Other panelists at Wednesday’s conference included: Brendan Buck, a former adviser to Republican Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner; Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for USA Today; and Jonathan Martin, senior political columnist for Politico.