Washington, Nov 9: Joe Biden’s name wasn’t on the ballot, but history will likely remember Kamala Harris’ resounding defeat as his loss too.As Democrats pick up the pieces after President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory, some of the vice president’s backers are expressing frustration that Biden’s decision to seek reelection until this summer — despite long-standing voter concerns about his age and unease about post-pandemic inflation as well as the US-Mexico border — all but sealed his party’s surrender of the White House.
“The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden,” said Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden in 2020 for the Democratic nomination and endorsed Harris’ unsuccessful run. “If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place.”
Biden aides believe Democrats got caught up in a wave of anti-incumbency in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that upturned governments in democracies around the globe irrespective of ideology. Biden tried for years to counteract the trend before stepping aside to give Harris a chance, but in hindsight they view the headwinds facing the party in power as having been insurmountable.
Only about 4 in 10 voters in the 2024 presidential election approved of how Biden handled his job as president, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide. Roughly 6 in 10 disapproved, and Donald Trump won a strong majority of those voters who were dissatisfied with Biden.
Some high-ranking Democrats, including three advisers to the Harris campaign, expressed deep frustration with Biden for failing to recognise earlier in the election cycle that he was not up to the challenge. The advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Biden, 81, ended his reelection campaign in July, weeks after an abysmal debate performance sent his party into a spiral and raised questions about whether he still had the mental acuity and stamina to serve as a credible nominee.
But polling long beforehand showed that many Americans worried about his age. Some 77 per cent of Americans said in August 2023 that Biden was too old to be effective for four more years, according to a poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs.
The president bowed out on July 21 after getting not-so-subtle nudges from Democratic Party powers, including former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. Biden endorsed Harris and handed over his campaign operation to her.
Yang argued that Democratic Party leaders also deserve blame for taking too long to push out Biden. With few exceptions, most notably Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, Democrats shied away talking publicly about Biden’s age.
“Why was this not coming from any Democratic leaders?” Yang said. “It’s a lack of courage and independence and an excess of careerism, if I just keep my mouth shut, we’ll just keep on trucking along.”
The campaign was also saddled by anger among some Arab American and young voters over its approach to Israel’s conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an ally of Biden and Harris, said in a statement that Democrats lost the thread on working-class Americans’ concerns.