Top 5 biggest political turkeys ripped by conservatives in 2024
As the 2024 election season comes to a close, several prominent figures in the media and Democratic Party found themselves on the short end of the stick with disappointing performances at the ballot box.
Chuck Schumer & Nancy Pelosi
Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Democratic Party lost the majority in the U.S. Senate in the November election, where Republicans now control the chamber
"As I’ve said time and again, in both the majority and the minority, the only way to get things done in the Senate is through bipartisan legislation while maintaining our principles — and the next two years will be no different," Schumer said in a statement following the November election.
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Despite Vice President Harris' decisive loss to President-elect Donald Trump, the New York Democrat praised her for her "historic candidacy" that "inspired millions."
Both Schumer and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi vigorously campaigned for the Biden and Harris tickets, and Pelosi was reportedly instrumental in pushing Biden off the ticket in favor of Harris, which ultimately was not successful.
Following the election, Pelosi has faced intense scrutiny from Democrats and liberal media outlets for her role in pushing Biden out at the last minute.
Pelosi has pointed the finger at Biden, arguing after the election that he should have dropped out sooner.
"And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in [a primary] and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened," Pelosi told the New York Times. "And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different."
Axios reported in a piece headlined "Scoop: House Dems sick of Pelosi," that while she "still instills fear in the members she led for two decades," some Democrats are "clearly frustrated Pelosi isn't fading into the sunset like she promised when she lost the gavel two years ago."
George & Alex Soros
The Soros money machine that has propped up progressive lawmakers and district attorneys across the country suffered significant losses in blue California on election night as voters overwhelmingly rejected progressives on the issue of crime.
California voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of Prop 36, which rolled back key provisions of Proposition 47 that was advertised by Democrats in the state as progressive crime reforms that would make the state safer.
When Proposition 47 passed in 2014, it downgraded most thefts from felonies to misdemeanors if the amount stolen was under $950, "unless the defendant had prior convictions of murder, rape, certain sex offenses, or certain gun crimes."
Progressives suffered another major loss in the city of Los Angeles, where District Attorney George Gascón, who co-authored Prop 47 and was backed by Soros, was defeated by former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman as crime was seen as a top issue of the election cycle.
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In another loss for Soros-backed prosecutors in the Golden State, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price was recalled, less than two years after taking office, following backlash for her alleged soft-on-crime approach.
Oakland Democrat Mayor Sheng Thao, who faced heat from her constituents amid rising crime, was also ousted from office after her recall effort passed with 65% of the vote.
In San Francisco, where crime has been a major concern with voters, Democrat Mayor London Breed lost her re-election campaign.
"I think that this is broader than just a message from people who care about crime," Cully Stimson, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and co-author of the book "Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America's Communities," told Fox News Digital.
"This is a massive mandate and cry for help from the general population that we want our state back. We want our counties back, and we want our cities back and that our failed social experiments have had enough time, and they're an absolute, abysmal failure."
Soros' son, Alex, who has taken over as the main face of the Soros empire, faced heat from conservatives on the campaign trail when he publicly huddled with VP candidate Tim Walz in his New York City penthouse.
Celebrities endorsing Harris
Harris’ presidential campaign was perhaps the most star-studded in modern political history, with high profile names like Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Usher, Beyoncé and many others hitting the campaign trail promoting her candidacy in person or in ads, which ultimately failed to move the needle with swing state voters.
The Harris campaign, which shelled out more than $1 billion in a three-month spending spree, has faced scrutiny for spending millions of dollars on high-profile events with celebrities, including from the Chicago Tribune, whose editorial board wrote, "Having someone with a large following simply stand next to a candidate at a podium and say a few words, solo, is one thing; doing a whole livestreamed event with, say, Oprah Winfrey, is another."
"Better yet, rather than do such events, the Harris campaign would have been better advised to let its candidate answer questions from independent journalists and give her more of a chance to explain herself and lay out her plans for America’s future," the editorial board wrote. "Celebrity osmosis did not work; voters wanted to hear more about what Harris would do for them."
Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, who won re-election in a state Trump won by more than 10 points, ripped his party this month for trotting out high-profile celebrity endorsements during the 2024 election cycle.
"Like, no one cares what some of these – we like their movies, we like their music. Who they’re voting for? Eh, not so important," the lawmaker told CNN anchor Kasie Hunt.
Pollsters
After many prominent outlets and pollsters missed badly on predicting Trump’s performance in 2016, many conservatives have been panning pollsters for failing to predict Trump’s electoral sweep of the key swing states along with his popular vote victory.
"Once again, there was about a 3 point aggregate polling miss, underestimating Donald Trump's support," conservative commentator Charlie Kirk posted on X after the election. "The polling miss was about 4 points in 2020. The hidden Trump vote strikes again."
Veteran pollster J. Ann Selzer took the brunt of the criticism from conservatives after her Des Moines Register poll released days before the election showed Harris winning Iowa by three points. Trump ended up winning the state by more than 13 points.
"My free advice to Democrats is fire all these consultants, pollsters, and so-called experts that gave you advice on how to reach the Hispanic vote because they don’t know jack, OK?" Florida GOP Senator and Trumps nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said this month on "America Reports" regarding the shift of Hispanic voters toward Trump.
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"The truth of the matter is, Hispanic voters are not in favor of illegal immigration, they are not in favor of uncontrolled immigration into our country, they are not in favor of allowing criminals to roam our streets and kill, murder, rape. Hispanic voters are not in favor of high prices that make life unaffordable, and they are not in favor of policies that send our jobs to other countries," he continued.
Biden/Harris re-election campaign
President Biden made history this summer when he dropped out of the presidential race amid pressure from many within his own party and essentially handed the reins to his vice president despite calls to hold an open primary process.
After several months of campaigning along with a spending blitz of $1 billion, Harris ultimately failed to make the case to voters that the Biden-Harris administration policies should be continued with four years of a Harris presidency.
Fox News Digital’s Julia Johnson, Alexander Hall and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report