Trump won, and Democrats now frantically search for a scapegoat for Harris' defeat

Kamala Harris lost the presidential election and Democrats failed to hold the majority in the Senate and it seems they are also headed to remain in the minority in the House of Representatives. Once the electoral cycle was over, it was time to assign blame for the defeat, and it did not even take 24 hours for the finger-pointing to begin.

Despite the fact that many polls showed a scenario of almost absolute parity, Donald Trump ended up winning all the key states and the popular vote, something that only two Republicans achieved in 36 years. As in 2017, the GOP will return to the White House with both houses of Congress, which is the worst-case scenario that the Democrats feared.

In this context, some Democratic analysts had a dialogue with The Hill and left virtually nothing uncriticized: the campaign strategy, the rhetoric and even the choice of Tim Walz.

"How do you lose a campaign so dismally?"

Some, like Democratic strategist Christy Setzer, believe the defeat was all but inevitable and that the overall performance was very good.

"At this point, the one silver lining is that there seems to be a widespread understanding that this was not the fault of Kamala Harris or her campaign," Setzer said, adding that Harris' campaign was "the best campaign any of us have ever seen" against Trump.

"Trump had no grassroots strategy and ran on disjointed hate speech. If we couldn't pull it off here, there were far greater forces at play," he added.

In dialogue with Politico, another strategist confessed to being convinced that no Democrat could truly have won this election. "People, for some reason, feel that four years ago everything was better, and I don't think we can fight that. We just have a bad image right now," he noted.

Another strategist directly questioned Harris' candidacy from the beginning, claiming that a primary could have produced a more competitive candidate. "Many of us believe this could have been different if he had decided not to run for a second term and if we had had a real primary. I know there's a lot of doubt, but we would have had a chance," he told The Hill on condition of anonymity.

Some also took aim at Joe Biden for not getting out of the race sooner. "I love the guy, but it's not like it was the first time people noticed a decline. They treated him gently for months and they have some responsibility, if I'm being honest with you," he said.

He was joined by Jim Manley, a top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "He shouldn't have run. This is no time to beat around the bush or worry about anyone's feelings. He and his staff have done enormous damage to this country," he told Politico.

"A lot of Hispanic voters have issues with black candidates"

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" the hosts commented on Trump's victory and concluded that, in part, it came about because of voter "misogyny."

"There's misogyny. But is not just misogyny from white men. It's misogyny from hispanic men, it's misogyny from black men. Might be race issues with hispanics. They don't want a black woman as president of the United States," said host Joe Scarborough.

He was joined by Al Sharpton, who directly stated that "a lot of Hispanic voters have problems with black candidates," adding that African-American men are among the "most sexist" people.

Scott Jennings' viral reflection on CNN

Scott Jennings is a political consultant and Republican analyst who has been a CNN panelist for several years. He also has experience in government, having served as special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs during part of the administration of George W. Bush.

Jennings went viral on many occasions during this election cycle due to his Republican political analysis on CNN's screen and did so again after Trump's win.

"I'm interpreting the results tonight as the revenge of the working-class American, the anonymous American who has been crushed, insulted, condescended to. They're not garbage. They're not Nazis. They're just regular people who get up and go to work every day and are trying to make a better life for their kids. And they feel like they have been told to just shut up when they have complained about the things that are hurting them in their own lives," he said.

In turn, Jennings questioned the media's anti-Trump and pro-Harris narratives, asserting that voters lost trust in the legacy media.

"I also feel like this election as we sit here and pore over this tonight is something of an indictment of the political information complex. The story that was portrayed was not true. We were told Puerto Rico was going to change the election. Liz Cheney, Nikki Haley voters, women lying to their husbands. Night after night after night, people were told all these things and gimmicks were somehow going to push Harris over the line, and we were just ignoring the fundamentals: inflation, people feeling like they were barely able to tread water at best," he stated.