The Left’s refusal to face reality has hit a fever pitch. Despite their incessant cries about “defending democracy,” they’ve proven time and again they only respect election results when they win. The results of the 2024 presidential election have laid this bare once again.
As you know, Donald Trump didn’t just win, he won decisively. He not only won the Electoral College but became the first Republican to win the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004. Yet, many on the Left are clinging to false narratives, unable to accept that their candidate, Kamala Harris, was soundly defeated.
This isn’t exactly shocking, since the Left hasn’t truly accepted the results of a presidential election they’ve lost since 1988. From Al Gore in 2000 to Hillary Clinton in 2016, the pattern is consistent: When Democrats lose, they cry foul, spin conspiracy theories, and refuse accountability. It would have been foolish to think the 2024 election would be an exception. After months of media hype and left-wing experts like “Election Nostradamus” Allan Lichtman and famed Democrat strategist James Carville assuring the left that Kamala was guaranteed to win, her loss has sent shockwaves through their echo chambers. Instead of self-reflection, Democrats and their allies have doubled down on denial.
But rather than confront the evidence, Democrats are resorting to increasingly desperate tactics to discredit Trump’s win. Michael Podhorzer, a former top AFL-CIO operative and fellow at the Center for American Progress, recently wrote a lengthy piece on his Substack about how Trump didn’t really win the popular vote.
Sadly, I’m not exaggerating.
“With all the ballots counted and all the races decided, in today’s post, I want to unpack what we already know about how Trump ‘won’ the popular vote,” he began.
Why did he put quotes around the word “won,” you ask? First, he says Trump’s candidacy “was only viable because (of) the justices he appointed to the Supreme Court,” and then he says the results of the election “are best understood as a vote of no confidence in Democrats, not an embrace of Trump or MAGA.”
He goes on to say things like “The popular vote result was almost entirely a collapse in support for Harris and Democrats, not an increase in support for Trump and MAGA,” and that “Trump was no more popular this year than four years ago, while Harris significantly underperformed Biden 2020.”
Podhorzer also points to the drop in voter turnout, particularly among “anti-MAGA surge voters,” as a key factor in the election results. He notes that 19 million Biden voters from 2020 did not participate in 2024, reflecting a significant loss for Harris and Democrats rather than increased enthusiasm for Trump.
Podhorzer argues this means that anti-Trump voters were less alarmed by a second Trump administration than they were in 2020, and thus stayed home in large numbers, resulting in 15 million fewer votes being cast “against” Trump compared to the previous election.
Imagine seriously claiming a candidate didn’t really “win” the popular vote because the voters who don’t like him couldn’t be bothered to show up—and then expecting anyone to take you seriously.
The foundation of his argument is that Trump isn’t really any more popular than he was in 2020 or in 2016. He didn’t win the popular vote, Kamala Harris voters just didn’t show up, and so… I guess… she actually won the popular vote… or something?
Whatever mental gymnastics are required to make sense of Podhorzer’s argument are really irrelevant because his assertion that Trump really isn’t more popular just falls flat in the face of the evidence. None other than liberal data guru Nate Silver destroyed Podhorzer’s lengthy post.. in just a single sentence no less.
Trump went from 63m votes in 2016 to 74.2m in 2020 to 77.3m in 2024 idk but seems like he's getting more popular! https://t.co/z7hifSHnkG
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 5, 2025
You got to hand it to Silver: in a single tweet, he debunked Podhorzer’s convoluted argument, pointing out that Trump’s growing vote totals over three elections are undeniable.
The simplicity of the truth—that Trump won the election—is too much for many on the left to bear. Until they can let themselves face reality, their credibility will continue to erode. Meanwhile, Trump’s victory marks not just a political triumph but a resounding rejection of the Left’s false narratives.
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