Kamala Harris has been defeated, Donald Trump is headed back to the White House, and the Democrats have begun soul-searching to determine what went so wrong in a landslide that saw the party lose ground with some of its most reliable constituencies.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. But most of the finger pointing hasn’t been aimed at Harris, who ran a truncated campaign that was generally well-regarded before the Election Day drubbing. Instead, some of the sharpest criticism focused on President Joe Biden for moving forward with a catastrophic re-election bid that set the stage for an across-the-board failure.
“The story might have been different if he had made a timely decision to step aside and allowed the party to move on,” says David Axelrod, the strategist behind both of Barack Obama’s presidential wins.
The frustration with Biden, many Democrats argue, must be extended to those who enabled his bid for a second term, including members of his inner circle who shielded an 81-year-old President in physical decline. “I don’t believe that Joe Biden believed he was diminished,” says John Morgan, a Florida attorney and Biden donor. “Now who may have known he was diminished were the sycophants around him in the White House.”
But as the extent of Harris’ loss becomes clearer, the focus on her missteps is likely to grow. Harris didn’t just lose swing states. She ceded territory across the nation, including in blue states that Democrats have long taken for granted. In Rhode Island, the party’s 27-point advantage under Obama shrunk to 21 points when Biden was the nominee, and shriveled to 9 points with Harris atop the ballot.
Read More: How Trump Won.
Across the first wave of exit polls were manifold signs of Harris failing to match Democrats’ showing four years earlier. Biden carried…
