WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — Democrats are still reeling from their Election Day loss, trying to figure out where it all went wrong and where the party goes from here, leading to infighting, finger-pointing and Monday morning quarterbacking.
Team Biden advisers are pointing the finger at Team Harris advisers and vice-versa, going from blaming President Biden for running at all, to Vice President Harris for how the campaign was run.
According to Axios, there was an all staff call Thursday evening where leaders pleaded with staffers not to talk to reporters. Harris, who was on the call, and told staffers, “This sucks, and there’s also so much good that has come from come of this.” One staffer reportedly said the message was detached from reality of what happened, saying, “We are told the fate of democracy is at stake. And then the message was, we’ll get them next time.”
Biden will leave office after leading the United States out of the worst pandemic in a century, galvanizing international support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion and passing a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that will affect communities for years to come.
But having run four years ago against Trump to “restore the soul of the country,” Biden will make way after just one term for his immediate predecessor, who overcame two impeachments, a felony conviction and an insurrection launched by his supporters. Trump has pledged to radically reshape the federal government and roll back many of Biden’s priorities.
Only about 4 in 10 voters in the 2024 presidential election approved of how Biden handled his job as president, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide. Roughly 6 in 10 disapproved, and Donald Trump won a strong majority of those voters who were dissatisfied with Biden.
Some high-ranking Democrats, including three advisers to the Harris campaign, expressed deep frustration with Biden for failing to recognize earlier in the election cycle that he was not up to the challenge. The advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Biden, 81, ended his reelection campaign in July, weeks after an abysmal debate performance sent his party into a spiral and raised questions about whether he still had the mental acuity and stamina to serve as a credible nominee.
But polling long beforehand showed that many Americans worried about his age. Some 77% of Americans said in August 2023 that Biden was too old to be effective for four more years, according to a poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs.
The president bowed out on July 21 after getting not-so-subtle nudges from Democratic Party powers, including former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. Biden endorsed Harris and handed over his campaign operation to her.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
