The high cost of eggs doomed the Democrats | Opinion

It is clear that the Republicans won the 2024 presidential election primarily because of the economy and immigration.

With a deeper dive into the economy, mistakes by the Biden-Harris administration and the Democrats become evident weeks after the election.

Let’s return to the economy at the start of the Biden administration in 2020.

COVID was still hemorrhaging medically but was also taking its toll on the economy. Biden and the Democrats passed a massive $900 billion COVID Relief Bill (without Republican help).

It was apparent that such a massive amount of money would take time to reach American’s pocketbooks. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama urged Biden also to consider the languishing trillion-dollar Infrastructure Bill from the Trump administration.

Since Trump could not pass it, Biden thought this would be a chance for him to make history.

With all of this money being pumped into the American economy, Biden overlooked a vital part of the economy – logistics.

The ports in America and all over the world were clogged with containers of supplies and products. The infrastructure in the ports could not move their product to meet the pent up demand. With supplies and manufacturing stopped, costs for products started rising rapidly. Unions at the ports complained of workload pressures with work slowdowns and threatened strikes.

This was the start of the killer of the economy: inflation.

Trump and big business on Madison Avenue saw a messaging opportunity in one simple part of every American’s breakfast table— the egg. The cost of eggs in the grocery store skyrocketed from blocked distribution, but also the poultry flu. Most Americans knew that the costs at the supermarket had more than doubled during Biden’s term.

I believe Biden misread the message of inflation. He thought the most important indicator was at the gasoline pump, not the grocery store

Biden moved on OPEC, released emergency supplies and even helped the drillers generate added supply to bring the price down. But it took time. And there was still the high cost of an egg at the end of the Biden administration.

Biden had succeeded in getting inflation under control. Further, employment was up, strikes were settled, interest rates had come down and even the stock market was up.

But Biden found it impossible to multi-task crises—two wars, abortion court rulings and a border out of control. His disastrous debate performance left America thinking he was over his head and over the hill.

Trump saw the ‘blood in the water; and began asking, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

Exit Biden and enter Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump’s messaging remained clear and concise, focusing on showing that the cost of eggs in the supermarket had tripled.

America knew inflation when they saw it, despite the denials from the White House.

The campaign was over.

Robert W. McKnight is a former Florida senator and representative from Miami-Dade and Monroe counties in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He is retired and living in Tallahassee. He is an author of books, commentary and a political thriller screenplay, Calle Ocho..

This story was originally published November 22, 2024 at 9:52 AM.