Daily Poster founder David Sirota warned that despite President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election, the Democratic Party needs to do some introspection after it underperformed in downballot races.
“I think the failure of the party to look at itself self-critically and ask questions about its weaknesses is unto itself a huge weakness,” Sirota said in a Hill.TV interview on Thursday.
Sirota, a prominent liberal activist and former top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign, warned against focusing on the specter of socialism and calls to defund the police to explain downballot losses.
He argued instead that the Democratic Party should focus on “energizing its own base” while examining how President Trump was able to remain competitive despite the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic recession.
“The fact that it was even close… that’s part of the reason why the Democrats didn’t do well downballot,” he said. “A Democratic Party strategy that focused on affluent Republican voters as opposed to energizing its own base—well, guess what happened? They managed to eke out a win against Donald Trump because Donald Trump was radioactive, but those Republican voters then, downballot, voted Republican.”
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. hill tv
