Senior Harris campaign advisor David Plouffe wiped his X account on Wednesday night amid backlash over a post that seemingly chided President Joe Biden, as Democrats begin placing blame on the parties allegedly responsible for their 2024 election loss.
Plouffe, who previously served as Barack Obama’s campaign manager, took to social media Wednesday to thank his campaign staff for their work on Kamala Harris’ White House bid. The message ended, however, with him writing “We dug out of a deep hole but not enough. A devastating loss.”
While Plouffe’s remark was non-specific, his comment coincided with finger pointing among Democrats citing the president’s initial decision to run for reelection and his reported reluctance to bow out of the race as the basis of Harris’ resounding defeat.
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As one anonymous Harris aide told Politico on Election Day, “We ran the best campaign we could, considering Joe Biden was president. Joe Biden is the singular reason Kamala Harris and Democrats lost tonight.”
Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden in 2020 for the Democratic nomination and endorsed Harris’ 2024 bid, also joined the Democratic infighting.
“The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden,” he said. “If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place.”
Other critics claimed Biden’s poor approval rating and untimely gaffes, given his proximity to Harris, curtailed her chances of winning. In the final stretch of her campaign, Harris’ team had reportedly sought to distance itself from the president who was trying to campaign on her behalf.
One source in the Biden’s circle slammed Plouffe to Fox News as a “sanctimonious a--,” calling his tweet “unproductive” before adding “Joe Biden is the President of the United States and won without [Plouffe]. He successfully beat Donald Trump—something [Plouffe] never did.”
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