Come on people. Issues count. The Dems lost on the economy, the border, over-emphasis on DEI/gender issues, and yes, Biden's failure to resign and allow a real primary. It may not be politically correct to say it, and I know I will get a lot of hate from the usual suspects on this forum, but it is the truth IMO, and I will stick by it. The Dems are lost until they really get in touch with the voters. Three of the four of these issues were within the Dems control, and they failed miserably in response to all of them. The economy was mostly an unfortunate aftermath of the Covid crisis, and I dont know if they could have done much about it, although I still think their response could have been better.
They totally failed to control the border until the very end when Biden took steps to do so, but it was too little, too late, obviously political, and made him look like a liar when he said before nothing could be done. And their messaging was terrible. What was their response to crime by migrants? "Well, crime is lower in migrants than in the general population". What a crass, dismissive, insensitive response. They should have expressed sympathy, said any crime is too much, and vowed to solve the problem within all legal boundaries. As for DEI/gender issues, most are valid protections, but as things tend to do, they let the pendulum swing too far, and overemphasized these issues instead of what the voters really cared about. Hell, I think the voters were even getting tired of Kamala's endless harping of how Republicans were going to take away reproductive rights. Biden's failure to step down is obvious, but I still think Kamala would have gotten the nomination (could they resist an African American, woman candidate? I dont think so.) Harris was the sitting VP, and checked all the diversity boxes. I think the chances are extremely high she would have been the nominee. (and also have been proof the Dems value political correctness/identity politics more than doing what it takes to win: i.e. nominate a white, male candidate who is not clearly mentally incompetent to do the duties of the office.)