Nearly three weeks after Election Day, a number of top Democrats are still offering suggestions as to why Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump.
Despite polls suggesting the 2024 race was essentially neck-and-neck, the actual results were far from it. Trump swept all seven crucial battleground states on his way to 312 Electoral College votes, winning the popular vote over Harris by more than 2.5 million ballots.
Almost immediately, Democratic figures began to point fingers regarding the vice president's election defeat. The blame has ranged from the party losing working-class voters, criticism of Harris' campaign, and President Joe Biden not exiting the race sooner.
The nature of November's crushing election defeats, which also saw the GOP win control of the House and Senate, has left some Democrats concerned about the party's hopes for future elections.
Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment via email.
Bernie Sanders: Dems 'Abandoned Working-Class People'
The independent Vermont senator, who caucuses with the Democrats, was one of the first high-profile figures to suggest why Harris lost.
In a statement on November 6, Sanders criticized the Democratic 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.
"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."
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Did Not Champion Policies for the Working Class
The New York congresswoman, a fellow progressive, expressed a similar view to Sanders about the party failing the working class in a November 6 livestream on Instagram.
"Our main project is to unite the working class in this country against a fascist agenda. Period. We have had an enormous setback in this election because the fascists won a lot of working-class support, which has happened before in history," Ocasio-Cortez said.
"At the end of the day, the ultimate problem is our ability to clearly and forthrightly advocate for an agenda that champions the working class," she added, citing calls to raise the national minimum wage to $15 as one missed opportunity.
Pete Buttigieg: Harris' Campaign Was Too Online
More recently, the transportation secretary and 2020 presidential candidate said that Democrats put too much effort into trying to win over voters using memes and social media rather than through in-person interactions.
"We've got to figure out how to take online conversations offline at scale," Buttigieg told The New York Times in a November 21 article.
"While it is not obvious how to do that, that is something that, for much of human history, until about 15 years ago, we all did. So we're going to need ways to do that that might, on some levels, be a return to form but, on other levels, entail information environment work that is unfamiliar to people who have taken a free press in a democratic society for granted."
Nancy Pelosi: Biden Should Have 'Gotten Out Sooner'
The former House speaker, who led the push to convince Biden to end his reelection bid, said that the president should have exited the race earlier to allow for a full Democratic primary process.
"Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race," Pelosi told The New York Times' podcast, The Interview.
"The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, there would be an open primary. I think she [Harris] would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don't know that. That didn't happen. We live with what happened.
"And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different."
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.
Adam Schiff: 'Principal Issue Is the Economy'
The congressman turned California senator-elect said Biden made the right decision to "pass the torch," but said that any incumbent government would have had difficulty gaining voter support after years of a struggling economy.
"Ultimately, what we saw in this country and around the world was a strong anti-incumbent wave that took out both progressives and conservatives, and our party became associated with the status quo," Schiff told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.
"I think the principal issue is the economy. Over years and decades, it has become increasingly difficult for people working full time to make a living. Until we resolve that challenge to the economy, we may find the presidency is easier to get than it is to keep."
John Fetterman: Party Not Strong on Border Security
The Pennsylvania senator, who urged Biden to stay in the 2024 race, said Democrats "kind of lost ourselves" with regards to vowing to securing the border in an interview with Fox News Sunday.
"I've been on this network months, months ago saying, 'Hey, you know, it can't be controversial for our party to have pro-immigration, but we need a secure border.' And when we ask or demand people to not believe what they see, and see those kind of numbers, that that's not a problem. It's like, well, then you lose about that 100 percent," Fetterman added.
In her concession speech at the Howard University in Washington, D.C., on November 6, Harris urged 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."
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