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Democrats Still Divided On The Scale Of Their Political Challenge After Election Loss
HuffPost
The internal debate over the health of the party comes at a critical moment.
NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly a month after a devastating election loss that exposed cracks in the very foundation of their party, Democrats remain deeply divided over the extent of their political problem — or even if they have one.
A number of Democratic leaders are downplaying the strength of Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris as the inevitable result of an inflation-fueled anti-incumbent backlash that shaped elections worldwide. But others are convinced that the Democratic Party is facing an acute crisis that requires an urgent overhaul of its brand, message and economic policies.
Trump swept every battleground state on Nov. 5, becoming the first Republican candidate to win the national popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004. Yet nearly half the country voted against him. With the final votes still being counted in some places, Trump won the popular vote by just 1.6 percentage points. He carried the seven top swing states by about 760,000 votes combined out of more than 151 million cast nationwide.
“The glass is half full. It was close. If we get another 2% or 3% of American voters, it would have successfully led to victories from the presidency on down,” says Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is leading a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy.
But for Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Labor-Farmer Party and a candidate to lead the Democratic National Committee next year, the election represented “a damning indictment” for the Democratic Party.