ATLANTA (AP) — As he wraps up his tenure as DNC chairman, Jaime Harrison is downplaying his party’s defeat to President-elect Donald Trump in November and claiming Democrats escaped even bigger losses than those experienced by ruling parties globally.
However, he admitted that Democrats need to do a better job of persuading the working class of the party’s achievements and aspirations. He also advocated for improved use of non-legacy media and ongoing national investments in party infrastructure.
In an interview on Monday, Harrison expressed his disappointment that Kamala Harris would not be the next president of the United States. “But we need to buckle up and prepare for it to continue,” he said, adding that the political pendulum in this country has been swinging quickly and back and forth.
Harrison made similar claims in a message sent to Democratic Party donors and leaders nationwide on Tuesday.
Harrison wrote, “Democrats beat back global headwinds that could have turned this squeaker into a landslide, even though Democrats did not achieve what we set out to do.” He compared Democrats’ losses in the United States to the more widespread defeats that parties in power suffered in democratic nations around the world since the coronavirus pandemic and global inflation.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, greets DNC Chair Jaime Harrison after phone banking with volunteers at the DNC headquarters on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Photographer: Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press
Naturally, a chairman defending his party’s performance even after poor elections is not uncommon. Following Trump’s victory, Harrison, President Joe Biden’s 2021 choice to lead the national party during his term, and other prominent Democrats have been under heavy fire, especially from leftists who claim the party has abandoned working-class voters.
Harrison cited the reelection of Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, as well as the wins for Sens.-elect Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.
On their path to a majority, Republicans continued to remove Democratic senators from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Montana. However, Harrison pointed out that Democrats had flipped some Republican districts and that the GOP House majority would be thin because the final tally is still pending.
Harrison pointed to Democratic victories in North Carolina’s statewide offices, legislative victories in conservative states like Arkansas, and the deprivation of Republicans of complete control of the Alaska statehouse at the state level.
He described it as a mixed bag.
The GOP might find it difficult to duplicate Trump’s triumph.
For the first time in his three presidential campaigns, Trump won the popular vote and defeated Democratic vice president Harris in all seven battleground states. The president-elect targeted important Democratic groups, including union backers, younger voters, and people of color.
He gained alarger share of Black and Latino votersthan he did in 2020, most notably among men under age 45, according to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters. And his coalitionincreasingly includedrank-and-file union members, a critical constituency in states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Harrison said Trump has the ability to scramble traditional coalitions but not remake them permanently. He acknowledged Trump s appeal yet framed him as a unique figure whose reach cannot be replicated easily, if at all, by other Republicans.
It s the same thing with Barack Obama, right? Sometimes in politics, they re cultural figures that can build different coalitions, Harrison said. And those coalitions don t last once they step off of the dais.
Democrats need to better sell accomplishments
If there is a glaring gap for Democrats, Harrison said, it is not necessarily in policy positions but in communicating accomplishments and priorities to voters. He argued that Biden s legislative agenda tax overhauls, new energy investments, pandemic aid helped the very working-class voters who propelled Trump.
Maybe we gotta do a better job of selling, he said, tipping his cap to Republicans use of podcasts and all manner of targeted media to reach voters. There s a lot of things that we can do in that space, he said.
Asked whether that means wading more eagerly into conservative spaces or Democrats starting more outlets and shows of their own, Harrison said, All of it. He added that he wants to invest some of his time on that issue after leaving office in February.
A warning not to bump South Carolina s primary down the calendar
Harrison has no plans to weigh in on theelection for his successor. The hundreds of DNC members will cast their ballots in February among a growing field, including two well-regarded state chairs from the upper Midwest:Ken Martinof Minnesota andBen Wiklerof Wisconsin.
Unlike Harrison, who ran the DNC as an extension of Biden s political operation at the White House, the new chairman will have more of a blank slate and a freer hand but perhaps more pressure in a party without a singular leader.
The DNC chief, however, will have a more direct hand in setting the party s presidential nominating calendar for 2028. The committeeat Biden s behestmoved South Carolina s primary ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire, and moved Michigan to the opening weeks of the calendar, elevating more racially diverse states over the overwhelmingly white states that led the process for decades. South Carolina four years agodelivered Biden his first primary victoryafter he lost Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
Harrison, who is Black and a South Carolina native, encouraged his successor not to undo Biden s overhaul given the importance of Black voters to the party.
We moved around the schedule to put more diverse voices at the table to decide the most powerful person on the face of this planet, he said. You can t pull that back. You cannot make major changes without there being some consequences for the most loyal demographic in this party.
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