In the aftermath of the recent U.S. presidential election, Kingsley Moghalu, former Deputy Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank, weighed in on Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump.
Moghalu highlighted key factors contributing to Trump’s victory, marking him the 47th President of the United States.
Moghalu suggested that gender bias remained a significant obstacle, stating, “Americans are not ready yet for a female President.”
He underscored that Harris faced challenges that former President Barack Obama managed to overcome, remarking, “Obama overcame racism, but his mother was white, and the timing was propitious.”
For Harris, however, Moghalu asserted that both sexism and racial prejudice played roles in her defeat. Economic concerns also shaped voter sentiment, with inflation being a central issue throughout the campaign.
Moghalu explained, “Perceptions of the economy – inflation that’s coming down but was high for most of the campaign season,” influenced many Americans’ poll decisions.
Moghalu added that another factor was Harris’s inability to connect with the white working class, which, according to him, remained sceptical of her candidacy.
He noted that Trump’s sweeping victory across crucial battleground states, including the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, signified a general preference for “traditional values” that resonated more with Trump’s platform, despite his controversial legal history.
“Harris ran an excellent campaign,” Moghalu remarked, “but she simply could not overcome the factors (good and bad) that drove support for Trump.”