And apparently, so did Tim Walz:

"He has no words. And people are kind of explaining to him, same thing with her. And she's like, are you sure? Have we done a recount? Should we do a recount?" Parnes said on the podcast, recounting how Walz and Harris reportedly reacted to their defeat.

"They thought that they were going to win. And so, you know, when they come back now and say, 'Oh, no, we didn't really have a chance.' No, that's not what they were thinking. They thought they were going to win," she added.

Harris campaign staffers felt "gaslit" by leadership about Harris' chances at winning after being told that "things were looking good" for the candidate ahead of the election, according to Parnes.

Harris also "bought the hype" that she was doing better than she was, the author said.

Parnes spoke with Palmeri at length in last week's podcast, which I missed while on vacation. It's embedded below, so be sure to watch the entire episode to get a better sense of the book. 

However, this data speaks to the future of both nominees in the Democrat Party and among their own electorates in their states. It's no secret that both Harris and Walz harbor ambitions for electoral office after their 2024 debacle. They both seem to believe that they came within an ace of winning, and their only real obstacle was the clock:

According to the book, Harris reportedly told friends in the aftermath of her defeat that she could've won the election if she had more time and if Biden hadn't run for re-election.

"She could have won, she told friends, if only the election was later in the calendar — or she got in earlier. In other words, Joe Biden was to blame," the authors wrote.

This is so backwards that it makes this image look practically prophetic in retrospect:

Has any major political figure lived so completely in a large bubble than Harris? 

First off, Joe Biden's decision to run again may have kneecapped Harris, but not in the way she thinks. Harris took part in a deliberate cover-up of Biden's encroaching dementia, which is the main subject of the Now It Can Be Told genre now emerging. There is no way that Harris could have possibly missed Biden's increasing incapacitation, and by remaining silent, Harris enabled Biden's second-term bid. Harris doesn't get to point fingers after participating in that fraud on the American people; indeed, she should be held accountable for it as one of its major architects.

However, that's almost secondary in this context. Harris seems to believe that she would have won both the nomination and the election had Biden stepped aside in 2023, when all of the evidence points to the opposite conclusion. Harris got the nomination the only way she could possibly have: by being anointed to it. Biden short-circuited any attempt at a competitive process that would have scrutinized Harris' skills as a candidate. As the Parnes/Allen book contends, not only did other Democrat leaders want a competitive process that week in July, they wanted a candidate with a proven track record of success, such as Gretchen Whitmer. Harris would have stumbled through a normal competitive primary in 2023-4 just like she stumbled through the 2019 primary run-up, especially since the national media would not have played along with Harris' 2024 general election media strategy during a competitive primary.

And that brings us back to the reality of the 2024 general election campaign. Harris had every advantage after her anointing in late July as the nominee in place of Biden. Voters had soured on Biden even before the June 27 debate, which is why Biden's team risked the prime-time confrontation with Donald Trump. Her entry re-energized sympathetic voters, and prompted all sorts of fawning coverage in the media. She got a polling boost almost immediately, even after her inexplicable decision to add the buffoonish progressive Walz to the ticket. 

RealClearPolitics tracked the response, which didn't last long:

What does this track demonstrate? First off, just the nominal numbers here should have kept anyone from being at all shocked by a Trump victory. Even without pollsters' normal under-counting of Trump support, his win was at least an even-odds possibility by Election Day. However, the trend lines clearly contradict Harris' claim that more time would have helped. In fact, Harris might have only been able to win this election if Biden had withdrawn in October. The longer Harris remained in the race, the less likely she was to win. She peaked in September, about two months after entering the race, and her support began eroding at that point forward.

Does that remind anyone of a similar arc? That was more or less the same results Harris had in her 2020 primary. She vaulted to second place in July 2019 after accusing Biden of being racist in a June debate -- and by September, her support had utterly dissipated. Harris had advantages in that race, too; California had moved its primary up in the schedule, Harris was seen as the most viable candidate for Democrats' hopes for "diversity," and Harris got her national profile raised during the Brett Kavanaugh kangaroo-court confirmation hearings in late 2018. 

And yet, Harris couldn't stick the landing in either cycle, not even when handed the nomination on a silver platter and given tongue-bath treatment by the Protection Racket Media. Harris didn't lose because of Biden or because of time; she lost because she's terrible. Harris is incoherent and clueless, perhaps the worst candidate Democrats have ever fielded for any federal office in modern history, and Walz isn't all that far behind. 

Why is this important? Harris intends on running for office again, most likely in California's gubernatorial race. She will run on the same gauzy progressive themes in a progressive state, which should be more amenable to Harris. She has already won statewide election in CA twice, when she was much less well known, and the first time only barely. However, Harris will also face competition in a primary for that spot from other Democrats, which means that the Protection Racket Media will be much less likely to shield her from her own incompetence. 

If Democrats keep buying into Harris' victim fantasies, they might actually lose an election in California. And if by some weird fortune Harris actually wins that election, her governance will likely be exactly like her campaigns: clueless, incompetent, and trapped in a bubble that might help destroy the Democrats' iron grip on the Golden State.

Caveat emptor, Democrats.

Anyway, here's the full podcast from Tara Palmeri and her interview with Amie Parnes. Color me skeptical on the idea that Harris had to beg for Biden's endorsement; I think Biden wanted to stiff Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi at the end and knew exactly how to do it.