November Election 2024: Post-election Assessment From A Hudson Valley Political Consultant

“What did you think of the recent November 2024 [general] election?”

Having been asked several times after November 5th this same question, usually in a pointed not-so-nice manner, I thought I’d share with you my – our – take on what happened regarding the general election this November, 2024. While there were surprises at the national level — and we were mildly surprised, too, but not deeply surprised — there were *not* many surprises locally. In this essay, I attempt to explain what we were seeing from a political mailing and consultation point of view.

“What highly unique insight would Cornerstone have anyway?”

Well, perhaps we’re not God’s Gift to political consulting, but most of the national pundits didn’t do so well either, so we’d ask you to have an open mind.

As a prequalification for any conversation, it might help you to appreciate that when I do get asked for guidance (pre-election) — by Democrat, Republican or Libertarian — I notice that the person asking usually already has an answer in mind, expecting (or at least hoping) that I will echo what they already think, believe or know. This gives you a set-up on how most elections go. Rarely do people pivot before or during an election and respond in consideration of larger issues. In most cases, the election campaign goes the way it is going to go because people are the way they are.

Further, as a matter of background, our work has ranged from the Congressional seats that with national impact to School Board races⁽¹⁾. At least in the last two electoral cycles of 2023 and 2024, Cornerstone won 80% of the campaigns in which it was substantively involved⁽²⁾, although we’ve also been on the losing side many times. Nonetheless, I think we’re getting at least getting better from where we started over 20 years ago and have learned a great deal about how voter habits.

Cornerstone Services, Inc. has been working with both New York and out-of-state political elections and ballot initiatives since 2002, but we are not aligned with any party⁽³⁾; our work is about 50-50 with either party, and used to be 45-45-10 when we worked regularly with New York State Libertarians. Since we support campaigns with both print/mail and webs/social media efforts, we do get to see a lot and we’d be idiots not to identify trends if not connect-the-dots on voting behavior. For example, I’ve sat in on caucus meetings for both parties, and seen the before-and-after assessments at both the state and local levels, helping with the aftermath review on “what went wrong” and “what went right.” Successful and non-successful campaigns leave clues, so the recent November 2024 election was no different.

“What the Hell Happened to Democrats Nationally?”

In talking with both Republican and Democratic voters regionally, the biggest take-away for us was that logic didn’t matter and reasons don’t matter. This outcome was the result of raw emotions and less about checklist reasons. Yes, you read the right. Reason didn’t matter with this election, and we’re not surprised — so often it doesn’t matter with most elections. Read on.

To be fair, there were no lack of reasons why voters would vote a certain way, and, why they wouldn’t vote a certain way. When you ask voters to back up their polling decisions, they will give you no lack of purported “reasons”. At the end of the day, however, I don’t think even the voters themselves could tell you really why they voted for or against many candidates or even some ballot initiatives

They might say they had reasons, but actually, I don’t think even their stated reasons mattered as much as how they felt – the reasons were there to back up the feelings and vice versa. So, this begs an enormous question… why really mattered, or in a larger sense, what really matters at all?

“So, You’re Telling Us that Feeling is Now More Important than Reason?”

My short answer is that more people felt – yes felt – a certain way mostly because of a sense of distrust and lack of identification. They voted how they felt and didn’t go with much else. Reasons don’t matter when you feel a certain way. The explanation is a very gray area, and I appreciate that it is difficult to support.

At the end of the day, voters didn’t like they way they felt with Democrats let alone most politicians. They wanted change and even the possibility of bad change was more acceptable than no change. Another way of putting this is that they didn’t feel “safe”. Not feeling “safe” is the same reason why people leave jobs and marriages, even when things might appear to be “good”.

Still, I know that I need to back-up better the “feeling” and “not-feeling-safe” claim. Our sense is that after recent decades of breathtakingly quick social changes, a rising majority of American voter didn’t like being told what to believe, how to act, what to think and especially how to feel. The Democrats were off-point on social issues, and this left many to feel unsafe about their perceived world.

Further, our sense (I have to use “sense” because again I can’t back up a claim about feelings over facts by using third-party statistics) is that the Democratic success, or at least alignment, in advancing domestic left-of-center social issues over so much else has lead to a knee jerk reflex of “anyone but them”. These social issues have been traditionally been Republican cannon fodder in the culture wars, but our sense is that they have moved from right-of-center to centrist. Even Such social issues also color each person’s daily experience and are now inescapable, not regulated to just the American coastlines. Increasingly, and unfortunately, local issues matter less.

In getting pressed to describe more than just “feeling”, I could relate that some of the possible social change issues are hiding in plain sight. Here are some hot pocket topics: required personal pronoun preferences, welfare benefits to illegal aliens, DEI legislation and education, transgender sports and gender-neutral bathrooms, the list goes on. Thousands of elementary schools must have gender neutral bathrooms and the Boy Scouts of America are now just Scouting America. If you are in a largely Blue State, these issues are a way of life now. If you are in a Red State, then you await the day that a Republican President will throw off the blue blanket seemingly covering your sense of daily liberties as you see them. My own “feeling” is that once a voter doesn’t feel “safe” with the ruling party, the voter doesn’t give credit to the ruling party about undecided topics like the war in Ukraine; the ruling party doesn’t get benefit of the doubt once uncertainty sets in.

Our point is this: voters come up the reasons to justify their feelings, and not the other way around. We believe that Democratic voters are simply more comfortable with these social changes, and less motivated to make changes. Comfort is not a “call to action” motivator, and they were outflanked by voters who felt way more agitated with the status quo.

“Voting by “Feeling” Makes No Sense. This Sounds like an Insult to Voter Intelligence “

There are lots of other places in people’s lives where use reason of logic isn’t that unusual. For example, it is highly unlikely that you don’t make a comparative list of “reasons for” and “reasons against” when picking a spouse, a sports team, favorite song, vacation spot, flower, wallpaper, movie genre, dessert, or the like. Something just felt right, and you went with it. If you don’t feel safe or reassured about someone, something, anything, you will make a change. Voting is similar.

Our job is to make candidates or issues likable, and we consciously avoid adding too much Reason to the recipe. Our job is often to make candidates appear attractive, and the copy is done to surround the image. We don’t lead with copy first. Voters couldn’t tell you most things, or perhaps almost anything, about a candidate, but they can tell you if they “like” or “don’t like” someone (or a Party or a Committee).

Getting back on topic: we also think that the modern pressures of daily life in the past three decades particularly have widened the gap of “haves” and “have not’s”. It’s not just the social changes that have been breathtaking, but the technological ones too, and many people feel left behind or just plain feel stupid. I have little to back this up, but for anyone who feels they don’t “get it” in trying to use more than 5% of their Smartphone features (or Wifi or Roku or Wireless printers or QR Codes), they feel left behind. Simply put: there has been so much change. We see the election results as a pullback to the hyper-changes across the board from 2000 to 2024.

It isn’t that technology can’t help, but what you don’t like about technology is how your feel about it, and not the technology itself. Not preferring frustration and feeling left out, voters would prefer to feel left alone. They can’t control technology, but they can respond to their feelings. In the 21st Century, there has been too much, too fast for many people, and our sense is that a reactionary voting outcome in an inevitable response to a personal world that no longer feels under control. If anything, individual worlds are hardly individual anymore. Examples: you can be called out on Facebook for voicing your opinions, drawing the ire of neighbors for your choice of lawn signs; you could be quickly and publicly shamed (if not actually recorded for the world to see on YouTube.com!) on the checkout line at the local deli for speaking your mind in open air about a charged subject. However, in the privacy of your mind, no one can touch you… no one can hurt you. By the time voters ended up in the polling station, they won’t recall everything that has happened in the last few years, but they didn’t forget how they felt.

You might say “hey, I don’t see the bridge here between social and tech changes and voting habits.” Correct. You probably won’t see a bridge (even a “rope brige” as we often say). There isn’t a direct bridge, but my point is this – a majority of voters have felt overwhelmed by societal changes and in particular, social policy changes, and voters will tend to assign blame to their life’s frustrations to whoever is in power. They don’t feel safe. It’s overwhelming. We’re sensing that voters are taking out their inarticulate frustrations in the voting booths.

I take a contrarian stance when I say that it’s not really about the economy. Increasingly, I think it’s about life’s little inconveniences and belittling experiences that counter the personal worldview and perceived individual freedoms which used to define voters lives.

“So, How Do We Win Votes and Voters Without Reason or Logic? “

When Cornerstone gets hired, it’s rare that we can, or attempt, to educate voters. By the time we get to a general election, it’s too late for education.

I know that sounds like a crazy tactic, but that’s why we recommend a website or maybe Facebook for anything beyond bullet-point messaging⁽⁴⁾. If you want to educate voters, dump everything onto your website and drive them there if necessary. You’ll get more credit for telling voters you have a plan than detailing what are your plans. Besides, once you get to office, nothing will go according to plan anyway, so stop pretending.

When send political mailings, we purport to aim for the head but in reality, we’re targeting the heart… the feeling heart. We can’t both educate voters *and* also get them familiar (or re-familiar) with a candidate or piece of legislation.

To win, we need to use imagery and conversational fragments. If your voter appeal or outreach letter looks more like a CV or Greek diner menu than the amount of text that we can fit onto a matchbook cover, then we’re going to lose people and we won’t win for you. This both an art and a science and we draw evidence from prevailing technology trends. For example, until 2024, the average TikTok video was around 30 seconds with an allowable maximum time limit of 3 minutes ⁽⁵⁾. In the world of direct mail, 30 seconds would be a lifetime. We estimate that we have, at best, 3 seconds to imprint a voter message onto, and into, the consciousness of a typical American voter.

While we can find no specific studies to back up our 3 second claim, I’m not sure it matters. Whether 2 ½ seconds or even 5 seconds, the fact is that candidates, PACs and political platforms are working in micro-moments to score an emotional hits to influence the voting recipients feelings, and not just thoughts.

In a modern study titled “USPS^TM Customer & Market Insights”, survey respondents stated that “mail is highly meaningful with emotional value” and 86% of respondents agreed with the statement “I take the time to look through my mail”. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Millennials and Gen-X’ers are much more likely to skim their mail than Boomers or Seniors⁽⁶⁾, underscoring our point that micro-seconds matter in how CRST must appeal to contemporary voters.

Simply put, voters are simply not taking the time to digest long-copy discussion or policy explanation. We have to bypass logic, reason and almost common sense and appeal to how people feel. This isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about what needs to happen to win. This is what we, Cornerstone Services, does to win: we are purchasing what I call “feeling awareness” for “payment” of attention – very brief attention – via direct mail with a supporting website. This isn’t for all voters as we do segment our targeted voter pool based upon some basic demographic analysis⁽⁷⁾.

“Where do We Go From Here?”

The Republican Party scored victories but they didn’t even really know why I bet. Sure they have their reasons, but even for them, I don’t think the specific reasons count much. I would almost say that they accidentally won or at least won for the “wrong reasons” (if one needs to have reasons). Republicans had a very flawed national candidate that people generally don’t like, who is known for lying even when the truth is patently obvious and verifiable. Their agenda was largely about what they didn’t like over what public good they would do; it seemed to us to be a smorgasbord of rolling back prior policies, self-serving narcissistic activities, fealty-based appointments, revenge payback measures, pardons along with ineffective red meat legislation with little-to-no long term national value. Perhaps the best thing we saw was a stance on illegal immigration for when you have a flawed law, the best way to make a decision on whether to keep it or remove it is to enforce it. More eloquently, as Abraham Lincoln said in 1838 in an address titled “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions”, to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois:

When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws.… But I do mean to say, that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed.

Once again, at the end of the day, a majority of voters didn’t like being told what to believe, how to act, what to think and especially how to feel. They didn’t feel safe. They felt imposed upon – even superimposed upon even – and responded with what they didn’t want rather than what they wanted. We feel that what voters were really saying was “we want to be left alone.” The winning candidate was the anti-candidate, but eventually, a personality won’t be a substitute for policy, and the scales will tilt back again once policy problems begin to surface

Where to go from here? Well, start by keeping things simple: we’re recommending to most of our clients that they stick with relatable local issues and leave the national issues alone. Redirect the attention locally. National issues are largely out of anyone’s control, so if you can’t win a street fight outside your neighborhood, don’t leave the neighborhood. If you’re running for county legislator or Town Supervisor, you need pictures that show you have the attention of an audience. Focus on getting the potholes fixed and getting the cats out of the trees. With a good image, we will come up with words latter. Refocus. Start early. Take pictures all the time. We want our candidates to be seen in front of audiences and crowds, not computers and cars.

As soon as you get elected, you should have already started running for office again. Elected officials all know this, but few do anything about this. You need to look the part and the voting recipient needs to feel that you can handle the part. If you’re actually doing a good job, then we just need to remind your voters that they like you because they tend to forget when things are going OK.

A final point on where to go from here: many races are actually won in the primary, so you need to have your act together well before the primary. An “army of one” is only an “army of won” when you have a battle plan, a team of “second lieutenants” and foot soldiers, along with a modest website and direct mail campaign schedule. By the time many races get to the general election, there are too many variables – it’s the OK Corral and it becomes a crap shoot on who might win. (On a county level or assembly level, it also gets expensive if you don’t win fast and hard early on.)

In summary, the Democratic Party has focused on social issue agendas and successes for decades. It’s worked for them. It worked until it didn’t work. Perhaps one could say (rightly) that they actually did a better job with the economy as well, but most voters didn’t care. Voters didn’t care because it because it didn’t resonate with how they felt. They didn’t feel safe. That’s too bad, for the history of social issues in American politics is largely the history of Democratic theme legislation⁽⁸⁾, but if you are trying to appeal to Millennials, Gen-X, Gen-Y, and even Boomers over the next few years, you will have to meet them where they are at; and, where they are at is how they feel. News flash: it’s not likely to change.

If you are a political candidate or represent a political party that is looking for website or direct mail support, please email us at info@crst.net or call (845) 255-5722.

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(1) School board races are fascinating to us because they are unpaid yet elected positions, and nearly all of the people who hire us have to put up their own money out-of-pocket. We find there usually to be two types of people who reach out to us to pay for a successful School Board position. First, there are individuals with a political agenda. Second, others believe that there is some kind of Manifest Destiny prompting them to run. We have yet to do work for anyone who was asked by others in the community to run. This is simply an observation for those who might not have realized that we get hired to do school board races — yes, it’s a “thing”.

(2) By substantive involvement, we had meaningful participation regarding strategy, content, voter data analysis, graphics, social media buys, timing, etc.

(3) I do wish to make clear that Cornerstone Services, Inc. doesn’t pick sides – we are vendors here to serve, just as would a catering outfit, the dry cleaners and an HVAC contractor. However, we are a marketing team and work on a project management model with project management personnel who have clearly defined job responsibilities.

(4) We only recommend direct mail and simple websites for candidates. Facebook is not recommended because you (we) can’t control the environment, let alone even ask for campaign contributions without click-through to another site. Facebook is trying to keep users on Facebook and your messaging on Facebook will soon compete with a whole host of other things that Facebook wants you to see to keep you on its platform and not necessarily on topic.

(5) https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-wants-longer-videos-like-not/?

(6) USPS^TM contracted study titled “USPS^TM Customer & Market Insights” 2016 conducted by Summit Research.
For a download of this study, please click the above.

(7) Example: Let’s assume we have a balanced electorate in a voting area, our sense is that about 70% of the voters are already predetermined to be left-leaning (35%) or right-leaning (35%). Therefore, our job is to woo the remaining probable centrist voters. We leave alone the extreme left or right, and then offer reassuring reminders to the aligned left or right, but spend most of our efforts on winning the feelings of the middle.

(8) Here are some examples of Democratic Party legislative outcomes over the past 100 years for which Party support and involvement was essential:
* Social Security Act of 1935 that established retirement and unemployment benefits;
* Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 establishing minimum wages, overtime pay and prohibition of child labor.
* Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed discrimination based upon race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
* Voting Rights Act of 1965 that protected the right to vote, especially for African Americans.
* Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965 which created healthcare access to vulnerable American populations.
* Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded programs, signed by President Nixon and passed by a Democratic congress.
* Roe v. Wade (1973) securing reproductive rights for women, while not legislation, it was widely supported by Democratic lawmakers and reinforced as Democratic policy.
* Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, signed by George H.W. Bush with bipartisan support and strong Democratic advocacy.
* Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) [a.k.a. “Obamacare”] that increased Medicaid coverage and lowered the number of uninsured Americans.
* Marriage Equality (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015), a high water moment for Democratic Party advocates.