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Democratic figures have hit out against Vice President Kamala Harris,
her choice of running mate, and how she ran her campaign following the
vice president's crushing election defeat to Donald Trump.

The nature of the presidential election loss, as well as the party
losing control of the Senate and possibly the House to the GOP, has left
some Democrats angry and questioning the future of the party.

A number of Democratic lawmakers, operatives, and aides have now given
their views on why Harris suffered such a heavy loss in the November 5 election. These range from her choosing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as
the vice presidential candidate, failing to distance herself enough from President Joe Biden, to the party abandoning working class voters.

Others have laid the blame purely on Biden for not dropping out of the
2024 race sooner and for giving Harris the difficult job of winning over
voters after he recorded at times historically low approval ratings.
Biden's term in office saw high levels of inflation and a cost of living crisis, with voters frequently citing the economy as their number one
election issue.

Newsweek has contacted the White House and Harris' campaign team for
comment via email.

"Abandoned working class people"
Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, blamed the party and its
leadership for ignoring working class voters during the "disastrous"
campaign.

"It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has
abandoned them," Sanders said in a statement.

"First it was the working class, and now it is Latino and Black voters
as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the
American people are angry and want change. And they're right."

David Sirota, a senior adviser for Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, expressed a similar sentiment about why Harris and the party had a "very
bad night" in the election.

"Some of us spent years warning Dems to take working-class politics more seriously and to not tout neocons," Sirota posted on X, formerly
Twitter. "We did so in hopes of avoiding this, and yet we were vilified
as traitors by Dem elites and liberal pundits. There's a lesson here."

Lack of communication in battleground states
Harris' loss resulted from her losing key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to Trump. Philadelphia Democratic
Chair and former congressman Bob Brady said that Harris' team's lack of communication with him in the Keystone state contributed to her loss.

"I would've liked to see the Harris campaign – especially the national
campaign – coordinate with us a little bit. Talk to us a little bit.
Give us a little bit more resources. Show us some respect. Didn't
happen," Brady told NBC10.

"They were just elitist and went out there, did their own thing and
didn't include Democratic city committee or (ward leaders) or committee
people. They just didn't do it,' he added.

Choice of running mate questioned
Lindy Li, a political commentator and Democratic National Committee
member, suggested that Harris made a mistake in picking Walz over
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate.

Shapiro was seen as one of the front-runners for the vice presidential candidate position to help Harris win the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania. Trump managed to flip the Keystone State, as well as the
other key blue wall battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan, which
were crucial for Harris' hopes of election victory.

"I know a lot of people are probably wondering tonight what would have
happened had Shapiro been on the ticket," Li, who is also Pennsylvania commissioner, told Fox News. "And not only in terms of Pennsylvania.
He's famously a moderate. So that would have signaled to the American
people that she is not the San Francisco liberal that Trump said she
was."

"In the eyes of the American people, [Walz] was the governor who oversaw
the [George Floyd] protests in Minnesota and probably let it go on
longer than he should have. So that has been seared in the minds of the American people," she added.

Li also said Harris made a mistake during her appearance on ABC's The
View in October. When the vice president was asked what she would have
done differently over the past four years compared to Biden, she
replied: "Not a thing comes to mind."

Li told Fox News: "That was the opener for her to show Americans that
she's going to get tough on the border, that she's going to take drastic measures to bring down inflation. That was her chance."

Struggle to move away from Biden
Others also suggested Harris failed to distance herself enough from
Biden and attempt to offer a change of direction for the country going
forward.

Biden was considered an unpopular president among voters who spent
months seeking reelection despite concerns about the 81-year-old's
ability to run for a second term in office. By the time Biden ended his
2024 bid and endorsed Harris, the vice president had around 100 days to convince voters to support her own campaign.

"We ran the best campaign we could, considering Joe Biden was
president," one unnamed Harris aide told Politico. "Joe Biden is the
singular reason Kamala Harris and Democrats lost."

Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton, who was one of the first
Democrats to urge Biden to end his reelection bid after the president's disastrous CNN debate performance, said it "would have been better" if
Harris had taken part and won the 2024 Democratic primary.

"[I]t was necessary for the Democratic nominee to separate him or
herself from an unpopular incumbent, as much as we love Joe Biden,"
Moulton told Politico. "None of those things happened."

Jamal Simmons, the vice president's former communications director, said
Harris fully breaking from Biden for her campaign would have been a
"trap" and seized upon as another Republican attack line.

"You can't really run away from the president who chooses you," Simmons
told the BBC.

MSNBC's Joy Reid defended Harris, suggesting the vice president had a
"historic flawlessly run" campaign which included the endorsement of
several high-profile celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.

"You could not have run a better campaign in that short period of
time," Reid said.

Harris formally conceded the election to Trump during a speech at Howard University in Washington, D.C, on Wednesday, urging her supporters "do
not despair" at the results.

"This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves," Harris said. "This is a time to organize, to mobilize and to
stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we
all know we can build together."


--
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.

The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and
eradicated.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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