Democratic senators have privately acknowledged that their party committed “political malfeasance” on the issue of border security, which they say was the driving force behind President-elect Trump's landslide victory and the loss of four Senate seats. Regarded as such.
Democratic senators spoke long and passionately about what went wrong in this year's election at a recent luncheon in the wood-panelled Mansfield Room, just steps from the Senate chamber.
Senators at the meeting offered a variety of theories about why their party lost on Election Day, even though many senators see President Biden's impressive accomplishments and the strength of the economy. .
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Many Senate Democrats believe voters' vitriol over Biden's performance is driven by anger over rising costs. That was probably the biggest factor in Trump's victory, they say.
But there is a growing feeling among Democratic lawmakers that the Biden administration has completely mismanaged the flood of migrants crossing the southern border, and that this is also costing the party dearly.
“We destroyed ourselves on immigration in a completely predictable and completely manageable way. We totally mismanaged this issue, including the Democratic caucus here.” one Democratic senator told The Hill.
“It's political malpractice. It's not someone else's fault. It's not a group pushing us around,” the lawmaker added.
Some Democrats say Biden made a big mistake in May 2023 when he lifted Title 42, an emergency health order issued by President Trump to block immigrants from entering the country to apply for asylum. That's what I think. Biden's decision allows millions of immigrants to remain in the country while their asylum claims are gradually heard in courts.
Senate Democrats tried to cover up the issue politically by accusing President Trump of rejecting a bipartisan border security bill he negotiated with Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) in February. .
When asked about Biden's border history, weaker Democratic candidates will argue that Senate Democrats authored the asylum reform bill. They argued that the bill gave the president broad new powers to close the border, but that Republicans nullified it because they wanted to campaign on the issue.
In the end, the strategies and arguments proved ineffective.
A second Democratic senator said “many Democrats” believe Biden and other party leaders mismanaged the situation at the border.
The congressman said he was disappointed by Biden's sweeping approach to undoing President Trump's immigration policies shortly after taking office.
Biden ended President Trump's “Remain in Mexico” policy, halted construction of the border wall, implemented a 100-day moratorium on deportations and suspended other domestic immigration enforcement efforts.
“Why are we doing this? Who are we dealing with? What are the benefits of doing this?” The congressman called border policy Mr. Biden's “Achilles heel.”
But the senator said Biden was right to reverse President Trump's “zero tolerance” immigrant family separation policy.
A final New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in seven battleground states finds that immigration ranks almost as high as abortion as voters' top concern after the economy. did.
And a Times-Siena poll of likely voters in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in August found that voters were more likely to vote on the issue by a 51% to 46% margin. It turns out that they trust President Trump more than Vice President Harris.
Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party after the 2022 midterm elections to become an independent, warned several years ago that the Biden administration was unprepared for the flood of migrants that would occur after Title 42 ended.
She introduced a bipartisan bill that would extend Title 42's expulsion powers for two years, a proposal that also includes Sens. Joe Manchin (Idaho, Va.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). I supported it.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) will join Cinema in November 2022 to meet Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. warned that an explosion would occur if Title 42 was terminated. About crossing borders.
And the eight Senate Democrats (Brown, Tester, Manchin, Kelly, Hassan, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), Sens. Jacky Rosen (Nevada), and Sens. Jon Ossoff (Georgia)) 42 in December 2022.
Several House Democrats blamed Biden's handling of the border issue as a key factor in Republicans winning the White House and Senate majorities and clinging to the House majority.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) told CNN shortly after Election Day that the border crisis was the main reason Democrats lost support with working-class voters.
“It just went bust this year,” he said.
“Biden mismanaged the border,” Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nevada), who won a close battleground state where Harris lost, told CNN.
But Democrats say they need to dig deeper into why Harris lost all seven battleground states while her party's handling of border security and immigration cost them many votes. are.
“We need to look at exactly what happened. We know we've lost men, we've lost Hispanics, we've lost women. We're not connecting with people, but that's a shift to the right and It's also part of a pendulum swing that is “appealing to people the way Trump does” that Harris couldn't, said a third Democratic senator, who requested anonymity to comment within the Senate Democratic caucus. Discuss what went wrong.
The congressman said social media platforms such as X (formerly known as Twitter) and TikTok have spread President Trump's message more effectively than Biden's or Harris's.
“Social media is a factor that hasn't been analyzed or explained so far. There's something going on there that we haven't addressed,” the senator said.
In June, Mr. Biden took active steps to crack down on immigration, signing an executive order suspending asylum applications if the average number of daily contacts between ports of entry exceeds 2,500. Democrats on Capitol Hill argued the action came too late.
A Democratic Party strategist said, “We can't do something right before an election, expect it to have an effect, and spend three and a half years feeling like we haven't done anything.''
The official added, “It's no exaggeration to say that some Latinos who moved to Trump also voted for him because they didn't want to be followed in their footsteps.''
Exit polls showed that Trump trailed Harris among Latino men by a 54% to 44% margin, despite years of harsh rhetoric about the overwhelmingly Hispanic immigrant population and its impact on the country. I won.
“I think the Democrats saw being hardcore on the border as being anti-Latino,” the strategist said, explaining why Democratic leaders took a cautious stance.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.N.Y.) has developed a strategy that points to the bipartisan border security agreement with Lankford as a key tool to protect vulnerable incumbents. He declined to elaborate on why Democrats performed so poorly on Election Day.
He said Democratic senators would hold further discussions to analyze the results, stressing that Democratic Senate incumbents and candidates still won in the four states that Trump carried: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin. .
But this optimism is cold comfort for many Democratic senators who saw defeats for Tester, Brown and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey (D).
“This was a transformative election, and we were on the wrong side of a transformative election,” the Democratic senator said after more than an hour of post-election analysis with colleagues in the Mansfield Room.
“The problem was the president's ticket,” the lawmaker said. “I think Harris has been given a really difficult task.”
“She's the vice president, but it's pretty tough to be vice president in a rotating election. She would have had to really break down. [with Biden] Regarding some issues,” the official added.
The senator also said Trump has done a great job of linking immigration to the economy and crime.
“President Trump talked about this. It wasn't just anti-immigrant. He tied everything to the economy: 'Housing prices are going up, we're going to lose jobs, we're going to lose wages,'” the congressman added.
The center said the party needs to listen to Sinema and other Democrats like Brown, Tester, Rosen, Shaheen and Hassan, who want the party to follow the center's lead on border security.
“When people say, 'Be more moderate,' if they're talking about the border, I agree with you. I've always agreed with you,” the senator said.
