Democrats sift through ‘unmitigated disaster’ after Trump victory: ANALYSIS

Democrats sift through ‘unmitigated disaster’ after Trump victory: ANALYSIS

In the end, most voters did want to go back.

 

Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats pounded away at a message of turning the page on former President Donald Trump and his brand of politics, promoting former aides who questioned his commitment to democracy and producing their own plans to combat things like price gouging and high home costs.

 

Wednesday morning, though, they were reckoning with a stunning sweep by Trump, who as the now-president-elect, appeared set for a swing-state sweep and left Democrats wondering how it all went so wrong.

 

“Complete, unmitigated disaster,” Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis said when asked about the results. “That was a wholesale repudiation of the Democratic message, the Democratic strategy, Harris’ candidacy. There is no way to sugarcoat what an abject disaster this was.”

 

Trump’s victory was thorough. He was projected to win or on pace to take all seven swing states up for grabs, while cutting down his margins in blue states from Minnesota to Virginia to New York. He lost women by 10 points after losing them by 15 in 2020, even after fury erupted over the scrapping of constitutional abortion protections. And he cut Harris’ margin among Latino voters to 8 points after losing them by 33 points four years ago.

 

Democrats, still licking their wounds as they spoke to ABC News Wednesday, had a laundry list of prescriptions for the party’s woes, both strategically in how the 2024 race was waged and more fundamentally in how the party is perceived coast to coast and the state of its coalition.

 

Harris took over in a particularly hectic series of events, taking over as Democrats’ nominee from Joe Biden after the president’s ruinous June debate poured jet fuel on concerns over his age and fitness for office.

 

Many expressed dismay and frustration, distressed that Harris’ historic candidacy and the party brand overall held insufficient appeal to win over voters who instead backed a twice-impeached former president convicted of 34 felonies whose closing message was so unfocused that it included riffing on a famous golfer’s genitalia.

 

Logistically, most pointed out the compressed timeline. In a country where elections have begun to run nearly two years long, Harris had about 100 days, leading some to point the finger at Biden for staying in the race as long as he did over the summer — or even running for reelection at all.

 

“He never should’ve” run for reelection, said Jim Kessler, the founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. “Democrats and the Biden White House did not do a good enough job listening to the people, and they were saying loud and clear, ‘your age is a concern.’ And they chose to ignore that. They were also saying, the border’s a concern, and so is crime. And they got to the right place on all of those things, including Biden’s age. But it took them too long.”

 

Harris and Biden for weeks before the election touted policies they said would help Americans deal with rising costs and hammered Trump for essentially killing a bipartisan bill that would’ve strengthened border enforcement.