Joe Biden’s name was not on the ballot, but history will likely remember Kamala Harris’s resounding defeat as his loss, too.

As Democrats pick up the pieces after Donald Trump’s decisive victory, some of the vice-president’s backers are frustrated that Biden’s decision to seek re-election until July – despite longstanding voter concerns about his age, post-pandemic inflation and the US-Mexico border – all but sealed his party’s surrender of the White House.

“The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden,” said Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden in 2020 for the Democratic nomination and endorsed Harris’s unsuccessful run. 

“If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place.”

Biden led the US out of the worst pandemic in a century, galvanised international support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion and passed a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill.

But having run four years ago against Trump to “restore the soul of the country”, Biden will make way after just one term for his predecessor, who overcame two impeachments, a felony conviction and an insurrection launched by his supporters. 

Trump has pledged to radically reshape the federal government and roll back many of Biden’s priorities.

“Maybe in 20 or 30 years, history will remember Biden for some of these achievements,” said Thom Reilly, of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University. 

“But in the shorter term, I don’t know he escapes the legacy of being the president who beat Donald Trump only to usher in another Donald Trump administration four years later.”

Biden on Thursday avoided directly addressing the voters’ repudiation of his presidency, instead noting Americans would feel the effects of his signature legislative efforts for years to come.

“Don’t forget all that we accomplished,” Biden said in a Rose Garden address attended by cabinet members and aides but not by Harris. 

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Democrats had been caught up in a wave of anti-incumbency after the COVID-19 pandemic that upturned governments worldwide. 

She did not directly respond to questions about whether Biden waited too long to bow out, telling reporters “he believed he made the right decision”.

Only four in 10 voters in the 2024 presidential election approved of how Biden handled being president, according to a AP VoteCast survey. 

Six in 10 disapproved, and Donald Trump won a strong majority of voters who were dissatisfied with Biden.

Some high-ranking Democrats, including Harris campaign advisers, expressed deep frustration with Biden for failing to recognise earlier that he was not up to the challenge. 

Biden, 81, ended his re-election bid in July, weeks after an abysmal debate performance sent his party into a spiral and raised questions about whether he still had the mental acuity and stamina to serve as a credible nominee.

But polling long beforehand showed that many Americans worried about his age. 

Some 77 per cent of Americans said in August 2023 that Biden was too old to be effective for four more years, according to a poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs.

The president bowed out on July 21 after strong nudges from Democratic Party powers, including former president Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Biden endorsed Harris and handed over his campaign operation to her.

Massachusetts representative Seth Moulton, one of several Democratic lawmakers who publicly pressed Biden to step aside, said on CNN the Democratic Party “would have been much better off” if Biden had left the race earlier.

Yang argued that Democratic Party leaders also deserved blame for taking too long to push out Biden. 

With few exceptions, most notably Minnesota representative Dean Phillips, Democrats shied away talking publicly about Biden’s age.

“Why was this not coming from any Democratic leaders?” Yang said, accusing them of “a lack of courage and independence and an excess of careerism”.

The campaign was also saddled by anger among Arab American and young voters over its approach to Israel’s conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. 

Harris managed to spur far greater enthusiasm than Biden among the party’s base, but she struggled to distinguish how her administration would differ from his.

Appearing on ABC’s The View in September, Harris was not able to identify a decision where she would have separated herself from Biden. 

“There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris said, giving the Trump campaign a sound bite to replay over and over. 

Those advising the Harris campaign said the compressed campaign timetable made it even more difficult for Harris to differentiate herself from the president.

Had Biden stepped aside early in 2024, they said, it would have given Democrats enough time to hold a primary. 

Such a contest would have forced Harris or another eventual nominee to more aggressively stake out differences with Biden.

The strategists acknowledged broad dissatisfaction among voters about rising costs post-COVID and broad concerns about the US immigration system.

Still, they said Biden had left Democrats in an untenable place.

Matt Bennett, of the Democratic-aligned group Third Way, said this moment was the most devastating the party has faced in his lifetime. 

“Harris was dealt a really bad hand. Some of it was Biden’s making and some maybe not,” Bennett said. 

“Would Democrats fare better if Biden had stepped back earlier? I don’t know if we can say for certain, but it’s a question we’ll be asking ourselves for some time.”

This post was originally published on Michael West.