As Democrats reflect on their 2024 presidential defeat, internal party tensions are mounting over whether President Joe Biden should shoulder all the blame, or if doing so oversimplifies a broader pattern of missteps.
In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, some Democrats, including senior figures within the party, have begun pointing fingers at Biden’s decision to run for a second term, and his delayed withdrawal from the race. Among them is David Plouffe, a senior adviser to Kamala Harris’ campaign, who, in the forthcoming book Original Sin, reportedly referred to the campaign’s efforts to defeat Trump as a “fucking nightmare.” He added, “It’s all Biden. He totally fucked us.”
Plouffe has not publicly commented on the reported remarks. A spokesperson for Biden declined to address specifics in the book, but defended the president’s record: “We continue to await anything that shows where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or where national security was threatened or where he was unable to do his job. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite, he was a very effective president.”
Plouffe’s sentiment echoes frustrations voiced by others in the party, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. However, some Democratic leaders and strategists are warning that laying the blame entirely at Biden’s feet is a dangerous oversimplification, one that could damage the party’s prospects in future elections, including the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential race.
Democrats Debate 2024 Defeat: Was Biden to Blame, or the Consultants Who Ran the Campaign?
Chris Korge, longtime Democratic National Committee finance chair, pushed back in an interview with NBC News. “To blame Biden now is to shift the accountability from the people who lost the race: the consultants, the so-called gurus,” he said. Korge noted that the party had ample resources, raising more than $1.4 billion, and executed a successful convention and a strong debate performance from Harris. “We had all the money we needed and we found a way to not use our money wisely,” he added. “I find it rich that consultants who lost that election are now trying to blame Joe Biden.”
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, criticized both the campaign and Harris as a candidate, while acknowledging some truth to concerns about Biden. “All the things being said about Biden, he should have dropped out earlier, and there’s likely a cover-up, is probably true,” Green said. “But that’s too easy an excuse to distract Democrats from solving a very real problem… we need anti-establishment candidates who stand for political and economic change.”
The conversation is gaining momentum with the release of several new books that analyze the Democratic loss. Original Sin, co-authored by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, outlines alleged attempts to obscure Biden’s cognitive decline. Another book, Fight, by NBC’s Jonathan Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes, includes accounts of Biden struggling to recognize prominent party leaders and details how his inner circle attempted to shield the public from signs of his aging.
Biden Pushes Back on Cognitive Criticism as Democrats Reflect on Late Campaign Handoff to Harris
In a recent appearance on ABC’s The View, Biden denied any cognitive decline, emphasizing his capability to serve. He also hired former White House aide Chris Meagher to manage communications. Meagher has pushed back against narratives in the books, posting on X that, “Yes, Biden was old, but that’s a lot different than an allegation of mental decline… which there is no evidence of.”
Biden had long maintained that his presidency would be a bridge to a new generation of leaders. Despite internal doubts, he secured support from many party leaders upon announcing his reelection bid. It wasn’t until his poor debate performance in June that significant pressure mounted for him to exit the race. When he eventually stepped aside and endorsed Harris, she was left with just 107 days to mount a full-scale campaign against Trump.
“In a 107-day race, it is very difficult to do all the things you would normally do in a year and a half, two years,” said former Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon on the Pod Save America podcast last November.
Democrats Face a Post-2024 Crossroads: Missed Signals, Leadership Gaps, and the Urgent Need to Rebuild
What remains unaddressed by many Democrats is the role played by those in Biden’s administration and campaign team in managing his reelection strategy, or in failing to address and plan for his vulnerabilities earlier on. This includes not elevating Harris’s visibility sooner, or taking action on concerns about Biden’s health before the campaign was underway.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who ran for president in 2020, recently said the party might have been better served by a real primary. “Yes, we would have been better served by a primary. But we are where we are,” she told NBC’s Meet the Press.
Longtime Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg urged the party to view the 2024 loss as a turning point, not just for internal reckoning but also for recalibrating the party’s vision. “There are a lot of lessons to be learned from 2024 beyond just whether Biden should have run,” he said. “We now have a new set of realities that we have to respond to and build from.”
Rosenberg emphasized that the political landscape has changed significantly with Trump’s return to office. “The politics that generated 2024 are no longer with us. The real next chapter for us is going to be the 20 or 30 political leaders in our party charting a new course.”