What We Found
Our report’s purpose is two-fold: to illuminate why the Democrats lost and to help propel the party toward a different approach and result in the future. Without a full and honest accounting of the Harris campaign and the Democratic Party’s myriad failures, there can be little realistic hope of defeating Trumpist authoritarianism in the future.
Our report identifies five main reasons for Harris’s failure:
Voter Disenchantment: Losing a whopping 6.8 million voters who supported Biden in 2020 proved pivotal in this extremely close election. Harris’s inability to mobilize these pro-Biden voters may have been the campaign’s biggest failure.
Biden’s Betrayal: Former President Joe Biden’s disastrous decision to run for reelection, and his stubborn refusal to step aside until very late in the process, robbed voters of a Democratic primary process, created confusion and chaos, and severely hindered Democrats’ chances.
Abandoning the Working-Class Base: With millions of Americans already disenchanted and desperate due to inflation, the Harris campaign lost this essential Democratic base by focusing on courting Republicans, kowtowing to corporate donors’ interests, and failing to confront the role of corporate greed in escalating inflation.
The Gaza Effect: There is ample evidence that Harris lost many voters, especially young voters, Arab-Americans, and critical support in Michigan and elsewhere, due to the campaign’s failure to shift or even signal a potential shift in policy on Israel and Palestine.
Losing Young Voters: Extensive evidence shows a huge drop-off in both turnout and Democratic support among young voters aged 18-29.
Christopher D. Cook is an author and award-winning investigative journalist based in San Francisco. His writing has appeared in national publications such as Harper's, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, The Guardian, Mother Jones, The Christian Science Monitor, The Nation, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Progressive, and Columbia Journalism Review among others. His work has been published in numerous anthologies, quoted in many books and in testimony before government agencies.
Sam Rosenthal is an organizer and researcher based in Washington, DC. He recently served three years on the steering committee of the Democratic Socialists of America's National Electoral Commission.
India Walton is a longtime community activist who emerged in 2021 as a powerful presence in the progressive movement after a stunning Democratic primary victory over a 16-year incumbent mayor of Buffalo.
Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org, an online activist group with 1.3 million active supporters in the United States. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and 2016, and was the national coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network in 2016.