The aftermath of the 2024 election has sparked intense discussion within the Democratic Party as leaders and analysts reflect on why Vice President Kamala Harris lost, and lost decisively, to former President Donald Trump.
One place many are pointing is at the White House, putting some of the blame on President Joe Biden. Despite facing significant challenges —including inflation, immigration issues, and discontent within the party — the president's decision to stay in the race has been questioned.
Many are asking whether Biden should have exited the race earlier or even chosen not to run for re-election at all.
Questions surrounding Biden's staying power were front and center during a recent White House briefing. According to Kellie Meyer, News Nation's Washington correspondent, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was repeatedly asked if the president could have done anything differently — specifically, whether he should have stepped aside to allow fresh leadership to emerge.
Despite the criticisms, Jean-Pierre defended Biden, noting that he was the only one who had successfully beaten Trump in the past and that he stood by his decision to allow Harris to replace him on the ticket.
"But also at the end of the day, it's an incumbent president, incumbent vice president. So they are plagued with the issues that come with that," Meyer told KRLD. "So they both were being blamed for the economy and immigration. And that's something that they really couldn't hide from."
The broader sentiment among Democrats is that the White House mishandled aspects of the campaign, from the timing of Harris' candidacy to addressing issues like the economy and immigration. One question being asked is whether the party should have held a primary race for the presidential nomination. Would Harris have been the nominee had there been more competition for the spot?
"But then you kind of ask, well, would she have made it to this point if there was a democratic primary process, because she ran in 2020 and she dropped out. She didn't make it to being a nominee in 2020 before. Would she have made it this far if she was in that primary process?" Meyer said. "And we did see Dean Phillips trying to speak out and then was really shunned by the Democratic Party as a whole. They all united behind Biden."
"You know, the polling at that time did point to Biden being the only one to beat Trump," Meyer added. "So they just rallied behind him. It was what we were told. And we just all got behind him. And then it changed and then it shifted. And then it just became this whole, you know, switcheroo."
Now that the 2024 election is over, many Democrats are shifting focus to the future and beginning to look toward 2028, with some anticipating a new generation of leaders to step up.
"I think the Democratic Party, many people I spoke with are hoping that they do some soul searching and kind of go back to the drawing board of how they can connect with voters the next time around or see if they learned anything from 2016 and 2020 and now 2024," Meyer said.
Sill, the outcome of the election raises important questions about how history will judge Biden's presidency.
"[He's] trying to bring his administration back into focus," said Meyer. "A lot of the attention was on his vice president the last couple of months, and it seems he's trying to reclaim this in the final weeks of his presidency to really try to solidify his legacy and get it away from all of this drama and back to what he hopes people notice, the legislation that he was able to get through and things like that."