As the Democratic National Committee prepares to select a new leader, the outgoing chair, Jaime Harrison, argued they should have “stuck by” then-President Joe Biden last year.
The Democratic Party has been engaged in a long period of introspection after former-Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to President Donald Trump in November. Now, with the DNC choosing a new chair on Saturday, Harrison reflected on the past campaign as he spoke to the Associated Press.
One key aspect he noted to the AP was that Harris would have had a better chance to win if she had more time because the party had been so oriented towards “building a race” for Biden up to the last minute.
Even after Biden’s disastrous debate performance, Harrison was still “riding with Biden” and seemed surprised when the former president dropped out.
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“I went into this thinking, OK, you’ve got probably the most successful of my lifetime legislative president who has poured tons of money into making sure that … Democrats get elected,” Harrison said, raving about how people said Biden’s 2024 address “was one of the best State of the Unions that we’ve ever seen.”
“Then we move forward to the debate, and people were like, that was a horrible debate performance. And then my thought was: ‘Joe Biden secured the nomination. The primary was done, and so, I’m a loyal guy. We’re riding with Biden,’” he said.
When asked if Democrats should have stuck with Biden in the presidential race, he argued that it was in his nature to do so, but the party had other plans.
“That’s my normal default, is that you stick by your people, right, particularly people who have worked hard on behalf of the party,” he said. “And that is not always the mentality of everybody in my party. And so sometimes, people look on the sidelines, ready to call in the backup.”
Harrison contrasted how Democrats panicked about Biden while Republicans circled their wagons around Trump despite his controversies, suggesting, “sometimes, I think, Democrats can learn something in terms of, let’s put a line of defense around our folks and defend them as well.”
Harrison seemed unprepared for Biden to drop out, having just a small group of staffers gaming out what would happen ahead of time, then making calls to Democratic leaders after the news to get a sense of how the party should move forward, only to find Harris had already beat him to it and wrapped up their support.
“And so I started making phone calls just asking, ‘I’m sure you’ve heard the news about the president,’ and to a person, they’re saying, ‘I just got off the phone with the vice president, and I’m pledging my support.’ I must have been chasing her calls, because literally, I’m calling, and everyone said, ‘Well, I’m supporting her,’” he said.
Now, observing the aftermath, Harrison said, “The DNC shouldn’t just be a rubber stamp to whatever the campaign wants.”
“You don’t always have a seat at the table, in terms of, you take all of the arrows and the responsibility,” he said. “People want to give you all the blame, but you don’t have the power to make those decisions, and I really think there needs to be reapportionment of a better, a greater balance.”
After the interview was released, Harrison objected to the headline, which read, “The DNC’s outgoing chair says Democrats should have stuck with Joe Biden in 2024.”
“This headline isn’t right. Stuck ‘by’ and stuck ‘with’ are two different things,” he argued in a post on X. “Yes, I believed we should have stuck by and defended President Joe Biden when he was our nominee, and at the same time when Joe Biden stepped down I was damn proud to fight for Vice President Harris to be our next POTUS.”
When reached for comment, the AP said it stood by the headline.
