The name of Joe Biden was not on the ballot, but history is likely to remember the resounding defeat of Kamala Harris as a failure for him too. At least that’s how it is for some allies of the Democratic candidate.
While those of the blue party regroup after the decisive victory of President-elect Donald Trump, some supporters of the vice president express his frustration because Biden’s decision to seek re-election until this summer — despite voters’ long-standing concerns about his age and concerns about post-pandemic inflation as well as the U.S.-Mexico border — virtually guaranteed his party would lose the White House.
“The greatest responsibility for this defeat falls on President Biden,” said Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden in 2020 for the Democratic nomination and supported Harris’ failed candidacy. “If he had resigned in January and not July, we could be in a very different place.”
Joe Biden will leave office after leading the United States out of the worst pandemic in a century, boosting international support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, and passing a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that will impact the communities for years.
But after having competed four years ago against Donald Trump To “restore the soul of the country,” Biden will give way, after just one term, to his immediate predecessor, who overcame two impeachments, a felony conviction, and an insurrection started by his supporters. Trump has promised to radically reshape the federal government and reverse many of Biden’s priorities.
“Maybe in 20 or 30 years, history will remember Biden for some of these accomplishments,” said Thom Reilly, co-director of the Center for Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University. “But in the short term, “I don’t know if he can escape the legacy of being the president who defeated Donald Trump only to usher in another Donald Trump administration four years later.”
On Wednesday, the president stayed out of public view for the second day in a row, making congratulatory calls to Democratic lawmakers who won runoff elections, as well as Trump, whom he invited to a meeting at the White House which the president-elect accepted.
This Thursday, Biden will give a speech in the Rose Garden about the election. He issued a statement shortly after Harris gave her concession speech on Wednesday, praising her for running a “historic campaign” under “extraordinary circumstances.”
Some senior Democrats, including three Harris campaign advisers, expressed deep frustration with Biden for not acknowledging earlier in the election cycle that he was not up to the challenge. The advisers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Joe Biden, 81, concluded his reelection campaign in July, weeks after his disastrous debate performance sent his party into a tailspin and raised questions about whether he still had the mental acuity and stamina to be a credible candidate.
However, polls showed long before that a large number of Americans were concerned about their age. 77% of Americans said in August 2023 that Biden was too old to serve effectively for another four years, according to a survey of AP and the NORC Center for Public Affairs.
The president retired on July 21, after receiving less than subtle hints from key figures in the Democratic Partyincluding former President Barack Obama and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. He supported Harris and handed over his campaign operation to her.
Kamala Harris managed to generate much more enthusiasm than Biden from the party’s base. But he struggled to distinguish how his administration would differ from Biden’s.
In September, in an appearance on “The View” ABCHarris could not identify a decision in which she would have distinguished herself from Biden. “I can’t think of anything,” Harris said, giving Trump’s campaign team a phrase it played until Election Day.
Strategists advising Harris’ campaign team said that The tight campaign schedule made it even more difficult for the candidate to differentiate herself from the president.
Had Biden left office earlier in the year, they said, it would have given Democrats enough time to hold primary elections. Submitting to the rhythms of an intraparty contest would have forced Harris, or another potential nominee, to draw differences from Biden more aggressively.
Strategists acknowledged that overcoming widespread dissatisfaction among the American electorate over rising prices in the wake of the pandemic and broad concerns about the U.S. immigration system weighed heavily on the minds of voters in key states.
Even so, They said Biden had left Democrats in an untenable place.
David Plouffe, a senior adviser to Harris, said it was a “devastating defeat” in a post on X. He didn’t blame anyone. He noted that Harris’ campaign “did out of a deep hole, but not deep enough.”
In the vice president’s concession speech Wednesday, some Harris supporters said they wished she had more time to present her proposal to American voters.
“I think that would have made a big difference,” said Jerushatalla Pallay, a Howard University student who attended the speech at the center of her campus.
Republicans are ready to control the White House and the Senate. Control of the House is yet to be determined.
Matt Bennett, executive vice president of the Democratic-aligned group Third Way, said this moment was the most devastating the party had ever faced.
“Harris got a really bad game. Some of it was Biden’s doing and some of it maybe not,” said Bennett, who was an aide to Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton administration. “Would Democrats have fared better if Biden had withdrawn earlier? I don’t know if we can say for sure, but it’s a question we’ll be asking for some time.”
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