Bernie Sanders Rips Democrats After Kamala Harris Loss: ‘No Great Surprise’

Senator Bernie Sanders ripped the Democratic Party after Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Trump appeared poised to sweep the battleground states, securing another term as president, as Harris underperformed with voters across the country following the at-times tense campaign. Democrats have already begun the autopsy on the election results as Harris supporters express a mix of outrage and despondence.
Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats who won reelection Tuesday night, issued a scathing statement Wednesday afternoon about the Democrats’ performance.
“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,” Sanders wrote. “First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well.”
He chastised Democratic leadership for defending “the status quo” while Americans “are angry and want change.”
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not,” Sanders wrote.
Sanders raised concerns about the Democratic Party’s response to several key issues, including health care, drug prices, the rise of artificial intelligence and the U.S. response to the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
“In the coming weeks and months those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions,” he wrote.
Newsweek reached out to Harris’ campaign for comment via email.
Polls in the final stretch showed a tight race between Harris and Trump, with both campaigns always expecting that key battlegrounds would come down to the wire.
By Wednesday evening, networks had called Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for Trump. He also held leads in Arizona and Nevada, though those states remained uncalled by about 6 p.m. ET.
Democrats are already divided about why Harris lost. Progressives are blaming Harris’ tact to the center on her defeat. They have also argued that her support for Israel cost her votes in Michigan. Some have raised concerns about voter perceptions of Harris as being too liberal.
Exit polls showed that the economy and concerns about democracy motivated voters. Harris had sought to dispel concerns about the economy, as the inflation rate has dropped since 2022. But voters still voiced overall dissatisfaction with the state of the financial affairs and the direction of the country.
Update 11/06/24, 6:37 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.