Former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile on Sunday called for “great self-reflection” after President-elect Donald Trump performed better than expected in some Democratic strongholds in the 2024 election cycle.
“We need to put everything on the table and do a good introspection about what happened. What happened in New Jersey… and what was happening in Minnesota, and of course Massachusetts and Rhode Island. What was going on in the states as well?'' Brazil said during a panel discussion on ABC News' “This Week.''
“Trump not only did better in the battleground states we were talking about on election night, he improved by three to four points,” Brazile said. “He's improved in the inner cities. He's improved in the suburbs. So it looks like Mr. Trump has implemented the 50-state strategy that Democrats used to talk about.”
Despite pre-election polls showing a close race with Vice President Harris, Mr. Trump outperformed expectations in the presidential election for the third consecutive year.
Trump is expected to win overwhelmingly in key battleground states and win the popular vote. He also made significant gains in comfortably blue states, losing some by the narrow margins Republicans had previously won.
Brazile, a longtime Democratic strategist, said everything should be on the table when discussing what went wrong for the party, but Democrats are doing better at appealing to voters. He also said he thinks he needs to work.
“So we can talk about messaging, we can talk about maps, we can talk about 'Was 107 days enough?' All this should be on the table. We're going to do a lot of self-reflection,” Brazil said.
“But more importantly, look at the Democratic Party. I was there eight years ago when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, and we looked at ourselves and said, 'What the heck? What?” I sewed the blue wall together using Elmer's glue. We needed duct tape and a lot of other things,” she said.
“We have to do a better job of appealing to the voters where they are and not trying to act like the election was won just because Donald Trump is a better liar. There wasn’t.”
