The Democrats' blame game is heating up after the stunning loss to Kamala Harris

The Democratic Party began a painful postmortem Wednesday morning of Kamala Harris' campaign, which ended in a bitter defeat to Donald Trump on Election Day.

The Republican president-elect won a landslide victory despite polls showing a surprisingly close race. How exactly Trump pulled it off, despite his own significant liabilities as a candidate, will undoubtedly leave many of his opponents wondering where they went wrong.

Some are asking questions of President Joe Biden, who has faced intense scrutiny of his mental fitness during his re-election bid. His disastrous performance in his debate against Trump in June sparked a crisis of confidence in his leadership that ultimately led to him dropping out of the race – which in turn gave Harris just a few months to campaign.

“This abbreviated phase of the campaign has, I think, deprived her of the long runway that a typical candidate needs to really lay out his vision as if he were going to win office.” Meet the press Host Kristen Welker said Wednesday about Biden's late exit Today show.

“We ran the best campaign possible considering Joe Biden was president,” a Harris aide said Politico. “Joe Biden is the only reason Kamala Harris and the Democrats lost tonight.”

“Why did Joe Biden last so long? He shouldn’t have hidden his (health condition) and got out much sooner,” said an unnamed Democratic donor Reuters. A Democratic National Committee official separately told the news outlet that he received angry messages from party members on Tuesday night after polling data showed Trump gaining ground among some demographics that Harris was leaning on.

“They feel lied to by the campaign,” the official said.

Others questioned Harris' choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Before she announced Walz as her running mate in August, many party insiders considered Josh Shapiro — the governor of Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state that Trump ultimately won — to be the stronger option.

“Many people are probably wondering tonight what would have happened if Shapiro had been on the ticket,” Lindy Li, a member of Harris' National Finance Committee, said in one Fox News Interview on Tuesday. She added, “I'm not sure how much Tim Walz contributed to the ticket.”

The Harris campaign's overall failure to find a message that resonated with enough voters was also blamed for the outcome. “Kamala Harris lost this election when she focused almost exclusively on attacking Donald Trump,” veteran GOP pollster Frank Luntz wrote of Harris' defeat in one X Post.

“Voters already know everything about Trump — but they still wanted to know more about Harris' plans for the first hour, first day, first month and first year of her term. It was a colossal failure for her campaign to spotlight Trump more than Harris' own ideas.”

There will inevitably be a lot more Democratic introspection in the weeks before and after January 6, 2025, when Harris, as vice president, will have the unenviable duty of certifying her own defeat.

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