Letters to the Editor: Democrats have to be likable if they want to win

To the editor: Robin Abcarian ends her Nov. 11 column with quotes from people who voted for both President-elect Donald Trump and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Those quotes — rife with words such as “like,” “care,” “feel” and “trust” — point to why I think Democrats lost this November.
Americans vote with their hearts, not their heads.
Trump’s Republican Party pushed fear, mostly centered on people’s money. A powerful emotion indeed, truthfulness notwithstanding. In contrast, Democrats offered arguments about abstract ideas — democracy, misogyny, racism and so forth.
If Democrats ever want to win a national election again, they’d better find a way to be likable.
Robert Maldonado, Gardena
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To the editor: I have crunched some of the numbers from Abcarian’s column and come up with a very different takeaway from this election than a lot of mainstream media.
According to some statistical modelers, when all ballots are counted Trump will have increased his vote share from 2020 by a little more than 3 million, with about 77.5 million in 2024. Voter turnout was down overall, and it was Vice President Kamala Harris who did not perform as well as President Biden, who received more than 81 million votes in 2020.
Despite what Republicans say, that’s not a big, sweeping mandate.
But it must be remembered that Trump had been campaigning for the past four years and Harris only 107 days. He didn’t get much for all that rallying, advertising and media spotlighting. In terms of money spent, it seems to me that he didn’t get much bang for his bucks — or Elon Musk’s.
Nancy Zaman, Beverly Hills