Mark McKinnon, a former Republican strategist, described the election as a decisive defeat for Democrats, suggesting it could serve as a crucial wake-up call for the party. Speaking on CNN Monday, McKinnon remarked that the outcome was so overwhelming that there should be no debate over what went wrong.
“I think maybe the only good news of this election for Democrats is that it was such a thorough a‑‑kicking that … there should be no debate over, ‘Was it this or was it that?’ It was everything,” he said.
Having previously worked for former President George W. Bush, McKinnon also expressed his support for Vice President Harris’s campaign and shared his belief that Democrats, currently in a difficult position, must find a way to recover.
McKinnon urges Democrats to rethink their approach to win back core support
“Democrats are now in the desert, and they’re going to have to figure out how to find water again,” he stated. He cited examples from history, noting how Bill Clinton reinvented the party after the Reagan years, George W. Bush introduced compassionate conservatism, and Donald Trump reshaped the GOP with his “Make America Great Again” message.
As Democrats begin to assess the fallout from their heavy losses, many are questioning how they lost so many swing voters, especially among the working class. There’s growing concern over how their messaging failed to resonate with these key groups.
“The clear message for Democrats is you got to rethink everything, especially when Donald Trump has stolen the very coalition that was the backbone of the Democratic Party, the working class of America,” McKinnon emphasized.
He pointed out the shift among key voter groups, such as Black and Latino voters and younger people, who moved toward Trump in this election. McKinnon concluded that the situation for Democrats is not a result of one isolated issue, but a culmination of multiple factors. “This is, again, not one thing or the other. It’s everything,” he said. “Democrats have to start from scratch and they got a lot of work to do.”
