Harris campaign aide David Plouffe told The Atlantic that the Democratic Party's failure to hold a presidential primary was a “mortal sin” amid discussion of the campaign's loss to President-elect Donald Trump. spoke.
“Given the headwinds, I don't know which Democrats would have won. But if there was a primary where a bunch of people ran and auditioned… through that process, whoever showed up… it would be more complete. “I would have become a well-formed person.'' I had more time to start my general election campaign. [Not having that process] That's a mortal sin,” Proof said. told The Atlantic.
A group close to the Harris campaign blames tight time constraints and media treatment of the vice president after President Biden withdrew from the race as the main reasons for the loss.
Plouffe also spoke about the state of the Democratic presidential race when President Biden withdrew from the race, saying the Democratic Party was in a “dire” situation.
David Plouffe, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign, said in an interview that it's unclear whether Democrats can win given the historical headwinds. (Getty Images)
Kamala Harris' incorrect answer on 'opinion' about Biden seen as turning point in campaign
“When I got into the car, it was the first time I saw the actual numbers under the hood,” Plouffe told the magazine. “They were pretty bad. The Sun Belt was worse than the Blue Wall, but the Blue Wall was worse. And demographically, younger voters overall, including Hispanic voters, Black voters, Asian voters, I was in a really bad situation. [candidate] A switch happened and some things got a little better, but we were nowhere near where we ended up and where we needed to get to. This was a rescue mission. The situation was catastrophic in terms of location. ”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said multiple times before the election that the process was open to Democrats and that Harris “won” the primary. But after Harris' loss, Pelosi said the president should have resigned sooner so Democrats could hold their primary.
In the weeks after the election, Harris' campaign was criticized for not taking any responsibility for her loss after giving an interview to Pod Save America.
Harris campaign chairwoman Jen O'Malley Dillon previously complained about a “story” that Harris was afraid to be interviewed during a conversation on “Pod Save America.”
Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a concession speech after the 2024 presidential election on the campus of Howard University on Wednesday, November 6, in Washington, DC. (AP/Jacqueline Martin)
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“I think it's a story to tell about how she didn't do interviews for 107 days…two weeks. You know she did plenty of interviews, but we did it our own way. We had to be a candidate, we had to find a running mate, we had to do a rollout, all of those things that we wanted to take into consideration. But real people, somehow, we had heard that we wouldn't get interviewed, which was both untrue and also goes against any kind of standard up until then. I blamed Trump, and I think that was a problem,” Dillon told “Pod Save America” host Dan Pfeiffer.
After Biden withdrew from the race on July 21, he immediately endorsed Harris as his successor. Harris did not respond to her first interview until 39 days after the president's announcement.
In an interview with The Atlantic, chief deputy campaign manager Quentin Foulkes talked about why he decided to keep media involvement to a minimum during the first month of the campaign.
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“I’m not saying this is defensive, but our priority was How do I get her to a battleground state? she [had been] “But when she was vice president, she focused on peripheral states rather than core states because President Biden frequently visited battleground states,” Fulks said.
