Democratic voters grapple with Harris' loss to Trump: What went wrong?

For many Democratic voters, Vice President Kamala Harris' loss to Donald Trump was disappointing but not surprising, they said in interviews. They agreed that their party had not done enough to talk about the economy and decried persistent racism and sexism.

Democratic voters in battleground states say they see many reasons for their defeat: the shortened campaign, a lack of economic messaging, too much leftward drift on social issues, the war in Gaza and bias against Harris because she is a woman of color.

Trump took advantage of Americans' economic disappointment and attracted primarily young men and Latino voters, according to NBC News polls.

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Laytza Hernandez, 18, said she voted for Harris but that many of her Mexican relatives voted for Trump because he gave a clearer message about the economy.

“They just felt like he was more responsive to their concerns,” said Hernandez, a student at Arizona State University.

Sami Khaldi, 58, the president of the local Democratic Club in Dearborn, Michigan, said many in the community were “angry” about the Biden administration's handling of the war in Gaza and had used their voices to protest. Voters in Dearborn, America's only Arab-majority city, went firmly for Trump over Harris, a departure from Joe Biden's victory over Trump there in 2020.

More broadly, Khaldi believes Democrats need to go further to win over rural voters. Trump made a concerted effort to campaign in all-blue states like New York, Illinois and California, where he said Democratic policies, including on immigration and crime, have stalled.

“They need to rethink their strategy by broadening their base and reaching out to the red states, not just the blue or swing states,” Khaldi said. “I understand that these swing states are very, very important, but I think we need to build a stronger foundation.”

While Harris struggled to introduce herself to voters in a shortened campaign season after Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July, her supporters acknowledged that they also had to walk a fine line between touting the administration's successes and presenting themselves as candidate had to go for change.

“She needed more time,” said Luis Muza, 20, a Latino and Democratic voter in Milwaukee. “If she had had more time it would have been a much closer race.”

Symone Sanders-Townsend, a former senior adviser to the Biden campaign and host of MSNBC's “The Weekend,” said Harris “left everything on the field” as she traveled across the country before Election Day.

But Sanders-Townsend said that when she spoke to Democratic strategists and officials in swing states like Pennsylvania, many expressed dismay at the perception that Harris' campaign appeared to focus on issues that appealed to voters who were more concerned about inflation and their Finances were not necessarily relevant.

One particular attack ad from the Trump campaign stood out, Sanders-Townsend said: In it, Harris said on the 2020 campaign trail that she would support giving trans prisoners access to gender-affirming care, and a narrator declared, “Kamala is for she/her.” .” ”

“The question that some of these voters had, according to the strategists on the ground, was, 'Hey, if they're going to focus on this, then they're not going to focus on me,'” Sanders-Townsend said. “Part of the examination of conscience is about how to get the message through. Because the idea that Democrats don't have an economic agenda that appeals to some of these working people isn't true, but do people feel like there's a difference.”

MJay Hawkins, a student at Arizona State University, said it seemed like the Harris campaign had focused too much on “things that people aren't comfortable with.”

“So they went for Trump,” Hawkins said, “because they portrayed him as a Christian in a way that he’s going to discourage people with gay marriage and all that stuff.”

For some Democrats, the possibility that Harris, a Black and South Asian woman whose victory would have been historic, could become president was not out of the question. Notable was her ability to draw away more white women voters – who have traditionally supported Republicans – amid greater concerns about women's access to abortion care and reproductive rights, although some Democrats fear the electorate is still not ready for a female president, let alone one colored president.

“I really prayed for her to get it,” said Deborah McKinnon, 68, a black Democratic voter from Pittsburgh. “And then I thought when (Hillary) Clinton was running, for some reason society didn't want a woman to win, and that came to mind this morning too, because she's a woman. Regardless of race, they didn't want to.” “I don't want her to win.”

Gary Tate, another black Democratic voter in Pittsburgh, agreed that gender was most likely a factor in an election where Trump managed to attract more young men to the polls.

“Nobody is ready for a female president,” Tate said, adding that he liked Harris' stance on abortion rights.

Harris' loss should not be underestimated, said Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, a national organization supporting women of color in politics that she founded after Trump's 2016 election victory. According to an NBC News poll, both black women and men voted overwhelmingly for Harris, and Allison said Democrats cannot afford to lose their base at a time when other demographic groups are shifting to Republicans.

One in three voters of color went for Trump, the best performance of any Republican presidential candidate since George W. Bush's re-election in 2004, the exit poll showed.

“It just underscores that Black women are the most loyal Democrats and were the driving force behind Kamala Harris’ campaign,” Allison said. “The country could learn a lot from what we have done.”

John Park, 37, a black Democratic voter in suburban Atlanta, said that as a warehouse worker for an automobile company, he initially liked Trump's “pro-American” approach. But he turned back to Harris after listening to an episode of Steve Harvey's radio show in which Harvey pointed out that convicted felons couldn't vote but that now a candidate with a felony conviction has another chance to be president to become.

Park blamed Biden for not resigning sooner. “He didn’t trust her when she was next to him,” he said.

The Rev. Luis Cortés, who runs Esperanza, a Philadelphia nonprofit that provides services and advocates for Latinos, said Trump did something Harris didn't: He “tapped the psyche of men” after “im “Very little has been done internally for this population”. Cities in our country, for black and Hispanic men.”

He said it seemed like Harris didn't have the same interest in economic development – and apparently recent controversy over a racist joke about Puerto Ricans at a Trump rally failed to sway some Latinos to support Harris.

“So they were open to having a conversation with Donald Trump and his leadership,” Cortés said, “and obviously that conversation gave them more hope with Trump than with Harris.”