There was a policy document called “Fightback!” published by the Australian Liberal Party (who were in opposition at the time) ahead of the 1993 federal election. The Labor government was behind in the polls, but they ran a massive scare campaign about the deeply unpopular policies in Fightback and managed to win a historic 5th term with a slightly increased majority.

The lesson both major parties took from that election was to never release detailed policies in advance of an election, because you give your opponent time to attack every detail and put you on the defensive (and if you’re defending, you’re losing). Publishing Project 2025 before the election may well turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes they made, because it’s given the Democrats the opportunity to get the news out about all the deeply unpopular things they want to do.

This is also a warning that even if Harris and the Democrats win this election Project 2025 isn’t necessarily dead, and they may learn to hide it better next time. The majority of policies in Fightback did end up happening to some degree over the following 30 years.