Outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison pushed back on some critics who believe the Democratic Party should abandon “identity politics” after losses in the 2024 election.
In a speech to Democratic donors in Arizona, Harrison defended his party’s commitment to fusing race and politics. He said that people of color need to see Democrats fighting for them, and that “cannot be the excuse for why we win or lose.”
“When I wake up in the morning, when I look in the mirror, when I step out the door, I can’t rub this off,” he said, waving his hand in front of his face, according to the Associated Press. “This is who I am. This is how the world perceives me.”
“That is my identity,” he continued. “And it is not politics. It is my life. And the people that I need in the party, that I need to stand up for me, have to recognize that. You cannot run away from that.”
After the election, Harrison announced he would not seek reelection to the post. On Feb. 1, DNC members will vote on their new leader, with state party chairmen Ken Martin of Minnesota and Ben Wikler of Wisconsin, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, and New York state Sen. James Skoufis, all in the running.
Harrison said he has no plans to endorse anyone in the race but has promised to let loose more criticism of his party once his tenure is over. It is the first time since 2017 that Democrats will see an opening for someone to lead the national party.
Democrats have been battling with themselves to determine what went wrong for them in 2024.
A recurring theme has been a sense that the party focused too much on social issues that catered to a small but vocal wing of the party rather than economic ones.
One of the most effective campaign messages for President-elect Donald Trump was using Vice President Kamala Harris’s words about supporting gender reassignment surgeries for illegal immigrants who are in U.S. prisons. The short clip was from her first run for president in 2019, and though she avoided speaking about the topic this year, Democrats struggled to distance themselves from the previous messaging.
Harris did take a step back from running on a heavy identity politics platform when it came to her own campaign. Although she would have made history as the first female president, she spent more time talking about her record as a prosecutor than her gender or race.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Harrison’s Thursday speech was a more frustrated version of what he tried to tell Democrats earlier in the week.
In an interview, Harrison said the problem with the Democrats’ 2024 campaign wasn’t about the policies they supported but rather how they talked about them.