By Brendan Scanland
WASHINGTON, D.C. — After a strong performance at the top of the ticket, and in several other down-ballot races for Republicans, Democrats are taking a deep look at their strategy, agenda and messaging now that the dust has settled.
Tuesday’s results are far from what most Democrats and Harris supporters were hoping for.
“I’m sad, I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” said Kristal Knight, a Howard University alumna who returned to her alma mater to hear fellow alumna Kamala Harris speak on Wednesday.
After a stunning defeat for Democrats on Tuesday and a return to victory for President-Elect, Donald Trump, experts say it’s time for the Democratic party to reassess.
“Democrats are going to have to do a lot of soul searching after this election,” said Dr. Todd Belt, a professor and the Director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. “They never had it in the bag. But of course, this is a little bit worse than they thought they were going to have.”
In her historic but compressed campaign, Harris struggled to distance herself from President Joe Biden. Belt says it was a major contributing factor in Tuesday’s performance.
“She wanted to take credit for some of the things, she also wanted to tell the base that I wouldn’t have done anything different because he was a great man,” said Belt. “But people wanted to hear something different. This was a change election. And even though we knew what Donald Trump was, we didn’t know what Kamala Harris was. And she couldn’t distance herself to be that type of change,” he added.
Throughout the 107-day campaign, Belt says the Harris team also struggled to refine its messaging on the economy and inflation.
“And Harris had some of those plans, but they were hastily put together, hastily tested, and were difficult to get through the noise of a very negative campaign,” said Belt.
But it’s not all bad news for Democrats. Although senate races in Nevada and Arizona have yet to be called as of Thursday evening, Democratic senate candidates in battleground Michigan and Wisconsin were successful in their statewide races, despite Trump carrying both states on Tuesday.
“There’s still a bit of a split-ticketing going on. We know that people are comfortable and know their senators and there is a group of those who are willing to vote for one party and not the other,” said Belt.
However, results from Tuesday also show two trends of concern for Democrats.
“If you look at the Latino vote, this is slipping away from the Democrats. They still have it in some places, not so much in others,” said Belt. “This is a place where Democrats are going to have to look back and see what is it we’re doing wrong and what can we do to win back these voters.”
The second concerning trend is a dip in support from union and blue-collar workers, as more rank-and-file union members break with their leadership. In September, the Teamsters, one of the largest unions in the U.S., with 1.3 million members, announced they would not be endorsing either candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election. The Teamsters have endorsed Democrats in every presidential election since 1996, which is the last time the union did not endorse either candidate.
“Leadership’s still pretty much behind the Democrats but rank and file members of the unions have been voting more for Trump. Democrats really need to figure out, this is a core section of their electorate, they need to figure out how to win them back,” said Belt.
For Democratic party leaders and voters alike, it’s back to the drawing board as they look ahead to the 2026 midterms.
“Figuring out how do we begin to unite the country around policies and issues that everyone subscribes to, that everyone cares about,” said Knight.
