Tuesday night's resounding win for Donald Trump has left half of the country emboldened, and half of the country fearing the worst.
Veteran Republican political strategist Mike Murphy joined KNX News’ daily political show Countdown 2024 to help explain how we got here.
Listen here:
“I think most of the blame has to go to Joe Biden,” Murphy said. “He made the mistake of running for re-election, then trying to do an early debate to restart his campaign, and then having such a horrible performance in the debate, his campaign collapsed.”
He said Kamala Harris’ last-minute “shotgun marriage to the party” put her in a tough situation, and she was unable to move the needle on the public perception of the Biden administration.
“A lot of us kind of over-complicated the analysis thinking, well, the Dodd decision, turnout, she's generationally different, she's sunnier than Trump,” Murphy said. “This was a classic, like 1980 of Jimmy Carter, ‘Fire the incumbents. Get ‘em out of there. Stuff costs too much. Inflation killed me.’”
What will another Trump presidency mean for the country? Murphy said that’s “the big open question.”
“We have a pretty good idea who he is, and so as a conservative Republican who doesn't like Trump and also didn't support him, I worry he'll just go on a grievance rampage, and that won't be good for anybody, particularly the country,” he said. “On the other hand, maybe he'll find some graciousness.”
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Murphy said that while it’s too early to tell what happens next, “I would be appropriately paranoid based on his past behavior, which was troubling.”
Listen to the full episode above to hear from former L.A. City Controller Wendy Greuel about how the local elections shook out, and catch new episodes of Countdown 2024 every weekday at 2:30 p.m.
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