Because the solar set on Howard College in Washington DC, a gaggle of girls gathered on a grassy patch within the centre of campus.
They held arms in a large circle and sang hymns, many wiping tears from their faces.
That they had simply watched a concession speech given by Kamala Harris.
Many had been on the college the night time earlier than, hoping to witness America electing its first feminine president.
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“I do not suppose she may have performed something in another way,” one mentioned, “she ran an excellent marketing campaign, I simply suppose misogyny and racism is deep-rooted in America.”
One other lay the blame on the door of President Biden.
“Sadly I feel if he’d have gone sooner, she would have had extra probability to inform her story and set up herself,” one other mentioned.
In Democratic Social gathering circles, the inquest had begun even earlier than Harris spoke.
Not solely had she been defeated in all seven of the important thing swing states, the map confirmed rightward shifts throughout the nation. Questions on what went incorrect for the marketing campaign and the Democratic Social gathering are at a fever pitch.
David Plouffe, a senior marketing campaign adviser for Harris, posted on X: “It was a privilege to spend the final 100 days with Kamala Harris… We dug out of a deep gap however not sufficient.”
Many are studying that deep gap as one left by Joe Biden, who some say did not go away his vice chairman sufficient time to make her pitch to the nation recognized. Mr Plouffe has since deleted his total X account.
Others questioned whether or not President Biden’s ego had led him to cling to energy too lengthy. Had the person who as soon as pledged to be a transition candidate been so intoxicated by the heady heights of the Oval Workplace that he could not bear to step apart?
Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen informed Sky Information she did not “suppose this was so private in the direction of Kamala Harris”.
She mentioned: “The marketing campaign miscalculated the significance of the financial system as a central message.
“I feel they thought it was going to be a referendum on Donald Trump and a referendum on abortion. And people two calculations, I feel, had them underplay what we all know voters’ key difficulty was, which is the financial system.”
President Biden spoke within the Rose Backyard, paying tribute to Ms Harris’s marketing campaign and promising a peaceable transition of energy to president-elect Donald Trump.
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However his speech will in all probability be remembered as a lot for what he did not say. There was no introspection in regards to the loss, no solutions supplied for why it was such a bruising defeat.
Brett Bruin, former White Home director of worldwide engagement who labored underneath Barack Obama, mentioned: “I am unable to assist however suppose again to what President Obama mentioned after his first defeat on the congressional stage. He acknowledged it was a shellacking.
“We did not hear that from President Biden. This has been a part of the issue all through his presidency, it is a part of the explanation why Biden and Harris have been so unsuccessful when it got here to unpopularity is that they did not acknowledge the issues, they did not handle the issues.
“I ponder when the Democratic Social gathering are going to say, ‘we have now to alter’.”