US elections: Democrat blame game begins as Kamala Harris accused of picking wrong running mate

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Kamala Harris has been accused of picking the wrong running mate as the Democratic blame game over her humiliating election defeat began.

The US Vice-President appeared on course to lose every one of the seven swing states that determined the White House race.

Harris, 60, declined to address the nation on election night, leaving Democratic officials to fill the vacuum.

Some blamed her choice of Tim Walz, the unassuming Minnesota governor, as her vice-presidential candidate.

The leading alternative had been Josh Shapiro, the charismatic and popular governor of all-important Pennsylvania.

Lindy Li, a Pennsylvania-based senior Democratic official, told Fox News: “People are wondering tonight what would have happened had Shapiro been on the ticket. And not only in terms of Pennsylvania.”

Li said that as a moderate, Shapiro “would have signalled to the American people that she is not the San Francisco liberal that Trump said she was”.

“But she went with someone actually to her left,” she added. “In the eyes of the American people, Walz was the governor who oversaw the protests.”

Harris ‘failed to stake out policy positions’

Democrats also argued Harris had failed to stake out her policy positions and sufficiently distance herself from Joe Biden, who was underwater in public approval ratings.

They pinpointed her appearance on the talk show The View, when she was asked what she would have done differently to Biden during the past four years, and replied: “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”

Meanwhile, Joy Reid, the MSNBC commentator, blamed white women in North Carolina for the Democrat’s loss in the swing state.

Supporters react to election results during an election night event for US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris at Howard University in Washington. Photo / AFP

“In the end, they didn’t make their numbers. We have to be blunt about why; black voters came through for Harris, white women voters did not,” she said.

Van Jones, a CNN contributor and former Barack Obama adviser, criticised the Harris campaign’s focus on celebrity-filled rallies.

“I don’t think people understand, working people sometimes have to choose. Am I going to go to the big, cool concert and pay for babysitting for that or am I going to figure out a way to get to the polls? I don’t like these big star-studded events,” he said.

Symone Sanders, a former adviser to Harris turned MSNBC commentator, said: “We have to listen to what the voters are saying.”