Nancy Pelosi Says Kamala Harris Would've Won Election if Biden Had Done One Thing Sooner

Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris— where he improved his 2020 numbers across nearly all major voter groups— has Democrats debating over what went wrong. The finger-pointing has begun, with many in the party directing their blame at President Joe Biden. Political leaders, lawmakers, and Democratic insiders blamed the loss on Biden's delayed decision to withdraw from the campaign, which came only in late July. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also held the same opinion in an interview with The New York Times.

As reported by HuffPost, she said, “The anticipation was that, if the President were to step aside, there would be an open primary." She added that Harris would have done well in that situation and come out stronger in the future. She suggested that if Biden had stepped down earlier, other candidates might have entered the race. “But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the President endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different,” she opined.

When asked if she regretted not pushing Biden to step aside sooner, Pelosi replied in negative. She explained that, until then, she had no reason to raise any concerns with the President, including those about his age. Not just Pelosi, David Axelrod, the strategist who helped Barack Obama in his presidential wins, also said, "The story might have been different if he had made a timely decision to step aside and allowed the party to move on." Several Democrats argue that frustration over Biden shouldn't be directed only at him. It should also apply to those who supported his choice to run for a second term, particularly his close aides who protected and encouraged the elderly president.

Harris didn’t just stumble in swing states— she lost ground nationwide, even in traditionally blue states that Democrats had long assumed were safe. Early critiques of Harris were relatively mild, but as TIME Magazine reported, some party strategists began to view her overly cautious campaign as filled with strategic missteps. One senior Democratic operative recently stated that Harris had a chance to connect with voters across the political divide. However, she and her Vice Presidential pick Tim Walz vanished from the spotlight, avoiding interviews for weeks, a move that left many puzzled.

Interestingly, Pelosi had urged Biden to run for reelection in 2022 but changed her mind this year as concerns about his mental acuity grew. She also rejected criticism that the Democratic Party has turned away from the working class in a recent interview. However, Sen. Bernie Sanders pointed out, that Trump at least pretended to care about economic concerns like inflation— issues Democrats, Sanders argued, have largely left behind, neglecting the working class in the process.