Ya know what bugs me about the claim that it was all about the economy?

[FBaggins]

84. Of course it was "the economy stupid"

One thing missing from all the counter speculation is an acceptance that voters were asked the question explicitly and there isn’t really any room for debate.

68% of the electorate said the economy was poor or “not good”. They went for Trump 70-28%

Impressions on the economy didn’t change when Biden dropped out. If anything - they should have improved because the news was generally positive. It’s unsupportable spin to claim that a white guy at the top of the ticket would have done better.

Note that this isn’t a denial of racism or misogyny in the electorate. But that’s not really the point you have to defend. The problem here is that you have to defend a very narrow type of racism/misogyny that supports someone for VP but not president