Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-D) on Saturday blamed the Democratic Party’s poor 2024 election performance on unpopular positions and a general appearance of ineptitude throughout the latter half of former President Joe Biden’s four years in office.
Khanna said in a podcast interview with Politico that Democrats lost the 2024 elections because they “became the party of war” and “were too late” in dealing with the inflation crisis.
“I think the Gaza situation really hurt us with a lot of young people, certainly in Wisconsin and Michigan,” Khanna said. “We would have won those two states, but for that.”
Khanna also said Democrats were late in “recognizing how much people were hurting” from inflation during and immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We kept calling it transitory,” Khanna said. “We didn’t have the urgency of a plan of what we were gonna do to tackle inflation.”
Khanna also referenced that there was not enough mobilization for domestic manufacturing of personal protective equipment, or PPE, and other products during the pandemic.
The California congressman also referenced the Biden administration’s seemingly lackadaisical response to the infant formula crisis in 2023 as another important issue that Democrats underestimated come election time.
“I think people just thought we weren’t on top of it,” Khanna said.
Khanna’s comments come at a time when politicians within the party are reckoning with the scandal left behind following Biden’s declining health during his presidency and the 2024 election season.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) on Saturday called for the Democratic Party to “be less neurotic, quit virtue signaling, and be normal” following a Los Angeles Times piece against Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) for having a single-use plastic water bottle.
Even amid calls for the party to be more serious, Khanna last month slammed his fellow Democrats for being too harsh on the party, considering its great history.
“It’s the party that has guaranteed Americans Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid,” Khanna said on Fox and Friends, adding that “it’s a great party.”
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A March NBC News poll found that only 27% of registered voters said they had a positive view of the Democratic Party, the lowest on record since 1990 when the agency began polling.
Only 7% of respondents said they had a “very” positive view of the party.