Leaders of Vice President Kamala Harris unsuccessful presidential campaign are opening up about what they think cost her the election against Donald Trump as De
Leaders of Vice President Kamala Harris unsuccessful presidential campaign are opening up about what they think cost her the election against Donald Trump as Democrats navigate what the future of the party looks like.
Democrats have been trying to figure out what went wrong for the party in 2024 that saw them lose control of the White House and Senate and leave Republicans with the House majority. President Joe Biden has received more of the blame in recent days with his low popularity ratings and for waiting so long toBy waiting until after states had held their primary elections, Biden denied the party a chance to have candidates go through a typical process and kept voters from deciding who the best choice was. It also left Harris with just 100 days to build and mount a campaign against one of the most well-known political figures in modern history. Along with the logistical challenges created by Biden’s late decision to drop out, his sagging approval ratings also created political problems for Harris, who backed him throughout her campaign despite repeated questions about what she would do differently than him.“Pod Save America”“Vice presidents stick by their presidents. And she wasn’t willing to, you know, change that precedent for whoever the future president, vice presidential partnership would be because it would mean a whole, you know, different set of problems,” Cutter said. “So unless we were willing to say, you know, Biden said green and she said blue on any particular issue where we’re never really going to satisfy that.” Biden’s approval ratings have hovered around or under 40% for most of his time in office, creating a difficult hurdle for Harris and other down-ballot Democrats to clear with an electorate that was broadly dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Convincing voters that she would be different from Biden was one of the biggest challenges for Harris throughout the campaign. She struggled at times to give concrete answers on how her administration would have been distinctive from the current White House and said in one interview thaton what she would have done differently from Biden during their four years in office. The Harris campaign did take some steps to distance itself from Biden, as the two did not appear together on the trail for the final two months before Election Day. Biden conducted solo campaign stops for Harris with groups of voters that he performed well with such as unions. But there were few areas where there was a contrast in policy from the current administration and the forward-looking messaging about the country’s future did not resonate with enough voters to win any of the swing states. Trump swept all seven battleground states, though all of them were closely decided, and has won the popular vote. He is the first Republican nominee to win the popular vote in 20 years and had the highest electoral vote count for a GOP candidate since 1988. The primary issue for voters was the economy and inflation, which they trusted Trump more to handle effectively moving forward. Most polling also found majorities of voters believe the country was heading down the wrong track, another race fundamental that proved too much to overcome. “She was already going to be tied with Biden because she was in the Biden administration,” said David McLennan, a political science professor and director of the Meredith poll. “I don't know what she could have done in voters’ minds to disconnect from Biden. She's got to be a good Democrat, so she can't trash Biden. But even taking the slightly different policy positions that she did, or even if she taken more dramatic policy positions than Biden had done, I'm not sure would have made a difference.” Harris is not the first vice president who went on to become the party’s presidential nominee to struggle to stand out from the administration they served in. The party quickly coalesced around her when Biden endorsed her to be his replacement, but tapping the vice president to lead the ticket is always a challenge for incumbents. Vice presidents who go on to win their party’s presidential nomination are inevitably tied to the administration they served in. The name recognition and support within the party has helped them win the presidential nomination but getting into the Oval Office has been much harder. “We've seen since George H.W. Bush, vice presidents have just taken it on the chin. Both parties need to look at their nominating process, because vice presidents do get a head start out of the gate — even in a traditional year, though this year was just such an odd year — but they need to look at larger questions of ‘what are the voters looking for?’ And if the incumbent party has low approval ratings, then nominating the vice president of the same party seems like a bad decision,” McLennan said.
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