In interviews, legislators and strategists attempted to discuss Kamala Harris’s defeat, pointing to falseinformation, the Gaza war, a poisonous Democratic brandname, and the celebration’s method to transgender problems.
By Reid J. Epstein, Lisa Lerer and Nicholas Nehamas, New York Times Service
MADISON, Wis. — A depressed and demoralized Democratic Party is start the agonizing slog into a mostly helpless future, as its leaders grapple with how deeply they undervalued Donald Trump’s resurgent hold on the country.
The acrossthecountry repudiation of the celebration shocked lotsof Democrats who had revealed a “nauseous” self-confidence about their possibilities in the last weeks of the race. As they sorted through the wreckage of their beats, they discovered no simple responses as to why citizens so decisively turneddown their prospects.
In more than 2 lots interviews, legislators, strategists and authorities used a list of descriptions for Vice President Kamala Harris’ failure — and simply about all of them fit nicely into their preconceived concepts of how to win in politics.
The peaceful criticism, on phone calls, in group talks and throughout mournful group conferences, was a behind-the-scenes sneakpeek of the intraparty fight to come, with Democrats rapidly falling into the ideological rifts that haveactually specified their celebration for much of the Trump age.
What was unassailable was how severely Democrats did. They lost the White House, gaveup control of the Senate and appeared headed to defeat in the House. They carriedout evenworse than 4 years ago in cities and suburbanareas, rural towns and college towns. An early New York Times analysis of the results discovered the huge bulk of the country’s more than 3,100 counties swinging rightward giventhat President Joe Biden won in 2020.
The results revealed that the Harris project, and Democrats more broadly, had stoppedworking to discover an efficient message versus Trump and his downballot allies or to address citizens’ misery about the instructions of the country under Biden. The problems the celebration picked to highlight — abortion rights and the security of democracy — did not resonate as much as the economy and migration, which Americans frequently highlighted as amongst their most pushing issues.
Many Democrats were thinkingabout how to browse a dark future, with the celebration notable to stop Trump from bring out a conservative improvement of U.S. federalgovernment. Others turned inward, browsing for why the country turneddown them.
They spoke about falseinformation and the battle to interact the celebration’s vision in a decreased news environment swamped with conservative propaganda. They yielded that Harris had paid a rate for not breaking from Biden’s assistance of Israel in the war in the Gaza Strip, which outraged Arab American citizens in Michigan. Some felt their celebration had moved too far to the left on social concerns like transgender rights. Others argued that as Democrats had moved rightward on financial concerns, they had left behind the interests of the working class.
They regreted a Democratic Party brandname that hasactually endedupbeing harmful in numerous parts of the nation. Several keptinmind that the independent Senate prospect in Nebraska ran 14 portion points ahead of Harris in the state.
And numerous stated they were havingahardtime to procedure the scale of their loss, explaining their sensations as a mix of shock, grieving and panic over what may come in a 2nd Trump administration.
“I am quite ravaged and concerned,” stated Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, who served as a co-chair for the Harris project. “There’s genuine, impending threat for individuals here. There is genuine risk here ahead for Americans — consistingof lotsof Americans who voted for Trump.”
Soul-searching over technique and worths
Not everybody was rather as mournful.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the longtime development