Several “winners” and “losers” have emerged in 2024 as the year draws to a close after Republicans took control of Congress in November’s elections, with several prominent Democrats ending up on the losing side.
WINNER – President-elect Donald Trump
Media pundits largely wrote Trump off after he left office and claimed his political career was over after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots and House impeachment. That criticism intensified after he found himself facing indictments in several different jurisdictions and clashed with several prominent Republicans during the GOP primaries.
However, Trump weathered the political storm as he survived two assassination attempts and recaptured the White House in November many described as the greatest political comeback in American political history.
TOP POLITICAL blunders in 2024
From left: Vice President Kamala Harris, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Vice President-elect JD Vance
On January 20, Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States for a term that will be bolstered by Republican control of the House and Senate for at least the next two years.
LOSER – Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
President Biden made history this summer when he dropped out of the presidential race under pressure from many within his own party, essentially handing the reins to his vice president despite calls for an open primary process.
After several months of campaigning along with a $1 billion spending spree, Harris ultimately failed to make the case to voters that the policies of the Biden-Harris administration should continue beyond the four years of Harris’ presidency.
Harris lost both the election and the Electoral College to Trump, and Republicans secured enough seats after the vote to retain control of the House and regain control of the Senate.
THE MOST ADDITIONAL PEOPLE IN 2024 LEFT AND RIGHT CAN AGREE AT LEAST 2
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Harris and her opponent, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, arrive at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on August 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Harris was widely criticized for her decision to pick Walz as vice president, and many political experts believe that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was the optimal choice. Walz has been billed by many media outlets as a personable and popular governor who has brought “Midwestern charm” to the map, but has also consistently drawn negative campaign attention with a series of gaffes and controversial statements about his past military service.
“Historically, vice presidents have little influence on the fate of presidential candidates,” Rob Bluey, president and managing editor of the Daily Signal, told Fox News Digital last month.
“But in the case of Tim Walz, it turned out to be a disastrous decision that doomed Kamala Harris from the moment she made it. Not only was Walz ill-prepared for the national and media spotlight, but Harris passed up several better options . Given how little Americans knew about Harris or her political views, they were right to question her judgment on this big decision.”
WINNER – Elon Musk
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX officially endorsed Trump shortly after the former president survived being shot during a failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
Musk quickly became a fixture on the campaign trail and spoke at a rally at the site of the assassination attempt.
“As you can see, I’m not just a MAGA. I’m a Dark MAGA,” Musk he joked at the rally in October, a nod to Darko Brandon’s meme. He called the upcoming November 5 election “the most important election in our lifetime.”
Over the past few months, Musk has positioned himself as a key voice in the Trump administration and has been seen several times at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida — some media outlets have reported that he lives on the property — and his influence has grown to the point that liberal pundits accusing him to be “co-president”.
Musk, along with former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, was appointed by Trump to lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, which has already made waves in Washington, DC, with elected officials on both sides of the aisle supporting the agency’s stated goal of reducing government waste.
LOSER – George Soros
2024: THE YEAR PRO-TRUMP CELEBRITIES GO MAINSTREAM
Leftist billionaire and philanthropist George Soros (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Soros money machine that supported progressive legislators and district attorneys across the country suffered significant losses in blue California on election night as voters overwhelmingly rejected progressives on crime.
California voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of Proposition 36, which overturned key provisions of Proposition 47, which Democrats in the state had touted as progressive crime reforms that would make the state safer.
When Proposition 47 passed in 2014, it reduced most thefts from felonies to misdemeanors if the amount stolen was less than $950, “unless the defendant has a prior conviction for murder, rape, certain sex offenses, or certain weapons crimes.”
Progressives suffered another major loss in Los Angeles, where District Attorney George Gascón, who co-authored Proposition 47 and had the support of Soros, he was defeated former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman because crime was seen as a major issue of the election cycle.
In another loss for Soros-backed Golden State prosecutors, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price was recalledless than two years after taking office, following a backlash over her alleged light-crime approach.
Oakland’s Democratic mayor Sheng Thao, who faced criticism from her constituents over rising crime, was also removed from office after her impeachment attempt passed with 65% of the vote.
In San Francisco, where crime is a top concern for voters, Democratic Mayor London Breed lost the campaign for re-election.
“I think this is broader than just a message from people who care about crime,” Cully Stimson, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and co-author of “Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America’s Communities.” he told Fox News Digital.
“This is a huge mandate and a cry for help from the general population that we want our state back, we want our counties back, we want our cities back and that our failed social experiments have had enough time, and they are an absolute, abject failure.”
WINNER – Newly elected vice president JD Vance
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the vice president-elect, leaves the Senate chamber as lawmakers work on an interim spending bill in the Capitol on Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
A popular story among left-leaning pundits during the presidential election cycle was that Trump’s running mate, Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, would alienate voters with a personality they found unpopular.
Contrary to that story, Vance has established himself as a formidable force in conservative politics, appearing on various podcasts, holding frequent press conferences, and delivering a debate performance that several polls suggest he’s winning.
Vance had a 34% approval rating when he joined Trump on the list. That number rose sharply over the next few months, and Real Clear Politics reported in mid-November, his favorability rating jumped to 44%.
“I thought people would be more upset about JD Vance,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said Semafor this week.
Vance, 40, will be the third youngest vice president in American history when he is sworn in next month. Since Trump is constitutionally barred from running for another term, Vance is already considered the frontrunner for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.
“We get four more years of Trump and then eight years of JD Vance,” Donald Trump Jr. said. in October during the campaign.
The younger Trump, who is a powerful ally of the VP-elect, is extremely popular among the MAGA base.
“The vice president will be in the cat seat, there’s no doubt about it,” longtime Republican consultant Dave Carney told Fox News Digital recently.
LOSER – Current Democrats in the Senate
On their way to taking control of the Senate, Republicans successfully ousted several Democrats who had spent decades in the chamber.
Senator Sherrod Brown has represented Ohio in the Senate since 2007 before losing to his Republican opponent, businessman Bernie Moreno, in November. Brown, seen as one of the most vulnerable members of the Senate heading into the election, tried to present himself as a moderate to Ohio voters who ended up voting for Moreno in a state Trump carried by 11 points.
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Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who comes from a prominent family in Pennsylvania politics, has represented the state in the Senate since 2007 and was long considered one of the toughest candidates to beat until he lost to GOP challenger Dave McCormick in November.
McCormick, a 59-year-old businessman, beat Casey by a narrow margin of 0.2 percent after riding on Trump’s support and dissatisfaction with the economy that Biden and Harris presided over for four years.
“We heard a common refrain. One message we heard over and over again is that we need change. The country is headed in the wrong direction. We need leadership to get our economy back on track to get this horrible inflation under control,” McCormick said after the election.
Montana Sen. Jon Tester, who also joined the Senate as a Democrat in 2007, suffered a similar fate in November after losing his seat to former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy.
Tester has taken more moderate positions in recent years, openly breaking with the Biden-Harris administration on several issues over the years, but that was not enough to convince voters in Montana, where Trump won by nearly 20 points.
Fox News Digital’s David Rutz, Paul Steinhauser and Cortney O’Brien contributed to this report.
