Dems who outran Harris in battleground states urge party to focus on ‘kitchen-table issues’

Democrats aren’t blaming Kamala Harris. But they have a lot of theories for what went wrong when Republicans swept control of the White House and Congress ten days ago.

After a week where many Democrats hid from Sunday shows in the aftermath of the election last Sunday, Democrats — especially from Trump-won states — came on to offer their critiques of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks so far — and offered insight into the Democratic soul-searching.

“Any party — and I can only represent the Democratic Party — needs to focus on the things that keep people up at night. That's their pocketbooks and their kids,” Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said in an interview with MSNBC. “There are a lot of issues out there. But you've got to start with what keeps people awake, and that is kitchen-table issues, economics.”

Like Slotkin, Ruben Gallego is a member of the House who won a promotion to the Senate on Election Day — even though Trump carried Arizona at the top of the ticket. He agreed that, broadly, Democrats did not connect with Americans on the issues that mattered to them, especially on the economy.

“You can have all the graphs you want,” Gallego said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “If you open up your checking account, and you see that you're making less, and there's not enough coming in, it doesn't matter what the GDP growth is.”

Gallego also noted that Arizona had more registered Republicans than Democrats and said he knew voters from both parties were struggling economically — and could relate to them as someone who grew up poor.

“People were hurting. When I say people were hurting, people were — really felt the pain of the economy,” Gallego said. “We explained to people that what is happening right now is bad. And also by the way, it's not your fault. But we're going to work to fix it. And I think that's the thing that we did for 23 months that made the biggest difference.”

Even Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), another current House colleague but from solidly-blue California, saw a similar messaging issue among Democrats..

“Frankly, I think one of the reasons I was successful in California is I was out there talking about the economy,” Schiff said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We need to make that case all over rural America that we understand what people are facing, that we respect them, that we're going to deliver for them. I think that's been missing.”

Pennsylvania was one battleground state that saw Republican gains down the ballot, with a Senate flip and two seats in the House. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who flipped a Republican-held Senate seat in 2022, also pointed to “unique” factors this cycle that made Trump the “strongest that he’s been in three cycles” — such as the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Elon Musk’s increased presence in the state.

Even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) acknowledged that Democratic losses among the working class is “an incredibly important part of our analysis” as the party moves forward. He reiterated that Democrats must “put working families over the well-connected.”

“Poorly negotiated trade deals, the outsourcing of good-paying American jobs, the decline of unionization, and of course the rise of automation have all jammed up people in the heartland of America, the Great Lakes states, and working families all across the country,” Jeffries said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And it's going to fall on Democrats, Republicans and independents to do something about it decisively. To me, that's the lesson that I take from the most recent election.”

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who is term-limited three years from now and has been mentioned as a possible candidate for national office in the future, noted that the upcoming Trump administration’s Cabinet picks open the door for Democrats to press their arguments.

“I certainly don't want to do any finger pointing, because the vice president had 107 days, and she did her very best. And I proudly criss-crossed the country in support of her,” Beshear said in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “But what I know is, going forward, over the next couple years, we have a chance every day, every moment, to show the American people that we are laser-focused on jobs, on their health care, on their infrastructure, on their kids’ education — just those everyday worries.”

He added, “And with this administration, at least right now selecting some very extreme appointees, it's a chance to make a real difference, to really show people that we're where their basic needs are.”

Beshear also noted that this does not mean Democrats should abandon their beliefs, pointing to his veto of an anti-LGBTQ+ bill passed by Republicans in the state legislature, but then got back to discussing jobs the next day.

“If we're talking about this issue of the day, and then we're talking about what Donald Trump said last night,” Beshear said. “And then we're talking about jobs — we're only spending a third of the time talking about what people are worried about and what impacts their life the most.”