The “stupidity and selfishness” of Joe Biden cost Kamala Harris the US election, a major Democrat donor has said as a bitter blame game began after her humiliating election defeat.
Whitney Tilson, a Wall Street investor, said: “Off the top of my head, right now, here’s how I’m allocating the blame.
“Fifty per cent on Biden for stupidly and selfishly deciding to run again and then not withdrawing earlier.”
He later told the Telegraph: “It saddens me that he [Mr Biden] will be remembered as the guy who saved us from four years of Trump and then now he’s given us another four years.”
His remarks were part of the soul-searching on Wednesday morning after what was a torrid evening for Democrat donors and officials.
As the dust settled, aides from the Harris campaign started briefing that Mr Biden was the only reason for the vice-president’s defeat.
Democrat sources told The Telegraph that Ms Harris was forced to inherit a campaign from a “deeply unpopular” president and had struggled to forge a different path from her boss.
A campaign aide told Politico: “We ran the best campaign we could, considering Joe Biden was president. Joe Biden is the singular reason Kamala Harris and Democrats lost.”
Some of the sharpest criticism was reserved for the party machine of concealing the truth about the outgoing president’s mental fitness.
“Why did Joe Biden hold on for as long as he did? He should have not concealed his (health) and dropped out a lot sooner,” one party donor told the Reuters news agency.
“The party lied to the American people about the cognitive health and fitness of the president,” Bill Ackman, a longtime Democratic donor who endorsed Trump, added.
Before his untimely withdrawal from the contest, Mr Biden’s cognitive abilities had been called into question by his debate performance versus Trump and a series of gaffes, including referring to Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin”.
His delayed decision to step down left Ms Harris only 107 days between becoming the new Democratic nominee and election day.
However, both her campaign and the White House were confident going into decision day.
Internal polling by both camps suggested Ms Harris was on an upwards trajectory and only gaining new voters the longer the contest went on.
Campaign emails to the most important backers emphasised a surprise poll showing Ms Harris up in the state of Iowa as the main reason for their confidence, sources told the Telegraph.
That study changed the narrative of the last 48 hours of the campaign, pollster Frank Luntz said. It turned out to be 16 points off the mark.
The positivity only triggered discontent among the campaigners who had been buoyed by the surveys.
But one Democratic National Committee official said: “They feel lied to by the campaign.”
Her supporters gathered at Howard University, her alma mater, where she was hosting her election night party.
Campaign officials and volunteers mingled in the ever-growing queue for fried chicken and Mac n Cheese from Chick-fil-A.
Even early Democrat losses in the state of West Virginia were brushed off as merely an inconvenience by one group of staffers, as they dipped their nuggets in the fast food chain’s special sauce.
Outside, a lectern perched on a stage in front of an illuminated Frederick Douglass Hall was there firmly in the belief Ms Harris would at some point deliver her victory speech.
The roads around the university were completely locked down, only adding to the sense of expectation the Democrat would arrive at the venue, if she wasn’t already hiding out in one of its historical red-bricked buildings.
Ms Harris’s candidacy sparked a unique sense of intrigue and hope. She could have been Howard’s first alumni to take the keys to the Oval Office. For students at the traditionally black university, the prospect of a Trump presidency would usher in a bleak period for race relations in the country.
Supporters, students and campaigners danced along to a collection of DJs entertaining the crowd.
The latest members of Ms Harris’ Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority were dressed in their traditional salmon pink suits, hanging off every song played.
But as the clock struck 11pm that atmosphere dissipated almost entirely.
A CNN election night update was broadcast on the three big screens erected around the Yard at Howard.
Star election night anchor John King said he would rather be Trump than Ms Harris as predictions tilted in the Republican’s favour.
Triumphant flag-waving was replaced by her supporters thrusting their hands into their pockets or folding them tightly across their chests.
What were once jubilant whoops and hollers at forecasts suggesting Ms Harris was on course to win another state were replaced with an eerie silence.
Diminishing crowd
Some people were sobbing at the prospect of a Trump presidency, others were slumped in their arms leaning on the metal fences erected to protect the stage.
At one point, the only cheer came from a campaign official, signified by an official lanyard, trying to whip up the dying crowd.
As midnight arrived, what was left of the diminishing crowd was trying to maintain the party atmosphere.
Exactly 53 minutes later, only a handful of hardened campaigners were left, shell-shocked by the result.
Pictures taken less than an hour apart showed what was a heaving crowd in front of the stage transforming into an almost empty venue.
They had just been told Ms Harris would not be addressing the crowd, some of whom had been waiting more than eight hours for her to emerge.
It brought back bitter memories of Hillary Clinton, who also pulled out of her election night speech in 2016 in the face of a looming defeat by Trump.
The few campaigners who were left started to discuss where it had all gone wrong, but were less willing to blame Mr Biden for the defeat.
One campaign source, who had spent the final weeks in the campaign in the swing state of Pennsylvania, lamented Elon Musk’s intervention.
They painted a picture of how Democrat headquarters could soon turn their focus on the South African-born tech billionaire for their defeat, rather than Mr Biden or Ms Harris’s performance.
Mr Musk had run the ground campaign in Pennsylvania, which was arguably the most important swing state to win, in the final weeks of the campaign.
His influence had been noticed and probably not accounted for, the campaign source said.
“We need to understand the impact of Elon Musk on our country,” she said. “Elon Musk can’t run for office… but he can be president without being president.”
The Tesla founder emerged as Trump’s most fervent backer, using his America PAC to raise money and pour funds into door-knockers sent to Pennsylvania to convince voters to come out and cast their ballot.
‘Musk can do what he wants’
“Elon Musk can do whatever he wants now, he has bought our democracy and can dismantle it,” the source added.
After the initial blame game plays out, the focus, according to other Democrats, will now switch to the future of the party.
Some blamed Ms Harris’s decision to appointed Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, as her running mate.
The leading alternative had been Josh Shapiro, the charismatic and popular governor of all-important Pennsylvania, which was ultimately won by Trump.
Lindy Li, a Pennsylvania-based senior Democratic official, told Fox News: “People are wondering tonight what would have happened had Shapiro been on the ticket. And not only in terms of Pennsylvania.”
Bernie Sanders also launched a scathing attack on the Democrats.
The Left-wing independent senator from Vermont, and former Democrat, said: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
Mr Sanders ran for president unsuccessfully in 2016 and 2020 and is considered something of a figurehead by Left-wing activists in the US, and progressives in the Democratic Party.
The biggest mistake, sources say, was allowing Ms Harris to take over the mantle without the challenge of a primary to discover whether she was the correct candidate.
Where Harris went wrong
Failed to say what she will do differently
When Ms Harris herself was asked what she would do differently to the Biden administration, all she could muster was to point out that “obviously, we’re different people”.
Ms Harris sat in a grey blazer and her signature string of pearls, hands clasped together politely before her coffee cup.
“What do you think would be the biggest specific difference between your presidency and a Biden presidency,” The View host Sunny Hostin asked her, raising a hand to put an emphasis on “specific”.
It was her big opportunity to distinguish herself from Mr Biden, and she failed to summon a single idea.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Ms Harris said when asked if there was something she would have handled differently. “I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had an impact.”
Too little too late for media blitz
One of the reasons why some voters may feel they have not had an opportunity to discover who the real Ms Harris is could be because of her media-shy communications strategy.
Her presidential campaign may have started late, but her media blitz started later.
While Trump was speaking to everyone from video game streamers to Elon Musk, the Democratic nominee was maintaining a low profile.
Instead of set-piece interviews, Ms Harris opted for staged moments controlled by her campaign, avoiding questions from reporters, dodging scrutiny and leaving little room for mistakes – but also little room to sell herself to the public.
She would often be vague on policy and push instead to tell more colourful stories about her past.
She appeared to have devised a careful strategy to target younger voters, people of colour and women.
At Howard, Wesley Bell, 18, a nursing student, said: “In my perspective, she’s done a good job at marketing herself towards Gen Z and getting them to vote, getting their voice out.”
Ms Canady, a fellow student, added: “Her target audience [was] younger people, people of colour, women and minorities.”
But because of narrow focus, Fox News, the pro-Trump broadcaster, frequently published articles highlighting the stark contrast in the number of interviews or questions taken by both candidates. Each showed the Republican to be leading the way.
Trump said her shy, quiet approach showed she was not fit for office.
Ms Harris is set to speak later on Wednesday to concede the presidency to Trump. She is then expected to take some time away from public life.
Late strategy shift
It took until the final weeks of the campaign before Ms Harris decided to dramatically shift her strategy.
She appeared on CBS News’ 60 Minutes, drank a beer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and allowed herself to be grilled by shock jock Howard Stern and Fox News’s Bret Baier.
During the final weekend of the campaign, she appeared on the comedy show Saturday Night Live in a skit that portrayed Mr Biden as senile.
Her last-ditch media blitz has allowed Ms Harris to somewhat flip the narrative, throwing the spotlight on Trump and his mental and physical fitness.
But in a contest that saw almost 200 million voters come out, her lack of visibility to the mass audiences potentially proved a decisive factor.
The wrong running mate
Ms Harris chose Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, to be her vice-presidential candidate.
She overlooked Josh Shapiro, the politically talented governor of Pennsylvania.
Both men were touted as running mates because of their credentials in the Midwest, a key area for election victory.
But having lost Pennsylvania, Ms Harris’s decision to pick Mr Walz appears to be massively flawed.
Election experts say Mr Shapiro wrote the guide on how to win Pennsylvania, probably the most important of the swing states, by pushing a narrative of governing as a moderate and proving that Democrats don’t look down on their voters.
Nate Silver, the pollster, said Ms Harris had missed a “big opportunity” in not selecting him as her running mate.
Lindy Li, a member of the DNC National Finance Committee, said: “People are wondering tonight what would have happened had Shapiro been on the ticket. And not only in terms of Pennsylvania.
“He’s famously moderate. So that would have signalled to the American people that she is not the San Francisco liberal that Trump said she was.”
Instead, Ms Harris settled for a historically gaffe-prone politician, who did more to unsettle American voters than win them over.
A series of misleading claims by the Minnesota governor that did nothing to fight back against the aspersions that Ms Harris and her running mate lacked authenticity, and said anything for votes.
Reports surfaced that Mr Walz had claimed he was in Hong Kong in the spring of 1989 during protests in China’s Tiananmen Square. Publicly available evidence suggests he was not.
Mr Walz also faced scrutiny over his military service after claiming he had carried weapons “in war”.
He never actually saw active service, according to his service records.
He retired from the National Guard before his battalion was deployed to Iraq in 2006. His departure from his unit actually came in July 2005, two months before it was alerted of the deployment.
A decades-old drink driving conviction also re-emerged to haunt the Democratic campaign.
The 1995 arrest first became an issue in 2006 when Mr Walz was running for Congress. At the time, his campaign blamed his drunken appearance on hearing loss from serving in a field artillery brigade in the National Guard.
In a later political campaign, Mr Walz told an entirely different story, admitting he had a problem with sobriety, leading him to quit drinking.
While a vice-presidential candidate is unlikely to sway the election results too much, Mr Walz opened himself up to attacks from the Trump campaign.
Unable to flip the narrative
Trump was successful in tarring Ms Harris as an untrustworthy candidate – and the mud stuck.
The Republican whipped up a scandal over whether his rival had worked in a McDonald’s while a student in the early 1980s into a national news story.
She was never able to provide concrete evidence that she worked at the fast food chain, which was turned into a stunt by the Republicans when Trump visited a branch in Philadelphia.
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“I’ve worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala,” Trump said on a campaign stop at a McDonald’s, where he manned the fryer and served at the drive-through.
Similar happened when Ms Harris was accused of plagiarism when it was alleged that sections of a book on crime were copied from various sources, including Wikipedia.
The Harris campaign said the allegations were a result of Right-wing “operatives”, but it was nonetheless damaging for her claims of integrity.
When push came to shove, Trump was the candidate who was able to land the most viral blows on his opponent, an important element of an election campaign that focused so much on two personalities.
