Democrats were crushed by the outcome of the election.
But the fallout of a devastating loss by Kamala Harris is just beginning.
And Nancy Pelosi fought back tears to give this bad news to Democrats.
Nancy Pelosi’s big bet fails with Kamala Harris
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) may not be in leadership anymore, but she confirmed this election that she’s still one of the biggest power brokers in the Democrat Party.
She led the charge this summer to force President Joe Biden to drop out of the race after his disastrous performance in the June debate.
Vice President Kamala Harris was swapped in as the Democrat nominee, and it appeared Pelosi had pulled off a masterstroke.
Kamala had a near perfect launch to her campaign but she stumbled down the stretch after she failed to differentiate herself from Biden.
Former President Donald Trump had the biggest victory for a Republican candidate since the 1980s when he swept all seven swing states and won the popular vote.
Pelosi’s bet in replacing Biden fell short and Democrats also lost control of the Senate and failed to flip the House.
The former House Speaker was in tears at Howard University in Washington, D.C. when Kamala gave her concession speech.
Pelosi gave her side of the Democrats crushing election defeat during an appearance on The New York Times The Interview podcast.
She called the election “heartbreaking” and “disappointing.”
Nancy Pelosi plays the blame game after Kamala’s defeat
Democrats have been pointing fingers after the election, and Pelosi was no exception.
She put the blame on Biden and suggested that Kamala might not have been the party’s strongest candidate.
“Had the President gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said. “The anticipation was that, if the President were to step aside, that there would be an open Primary.”
Biden endorsed Kamala for President shortly after dropping out of the race in July.
“And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in [a Primary] and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened,” Pelosi explained. “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.”
It was reported at the time that Democrats wanted to have a mini-primary after Biden dropped out of the race with the nominee picked at the Democratic National Convention at the end of August.
Biden endorsed Kamala the same day he dropped out, and she clinched enough delegates to clinch the nomination just days after entering the race.
“Many of us who were concerned about the election wanted to have an open process. It was an open process, anyone could have gotten in,” Pelosi told the Wall Street Journal in August. “[Kamala] had the endorsement of the President, and she, politically astutely, took advantage of it and shut down — not shut down, but won the nomination. But anybody else could have gotten in.”
Joe Biden saddled the Democrat Party with Kamala Harris when he issued a quick endorsement after leaving the race.
And he set the party up for an eventual defeat on Election Day.
