Former GOP strategist: Election was a ‘thorough a‑‑kicking for Democrats’

Former Republican strategist Mark McKinnon said the election was a “thorough a‑‑kicking" for Democrats and argued it may be the wake-up call the party needed.

“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,” McKinnon said Monday on CNN, highlighted by Mediaite.

McKinnon, who worked for former President George W. Bush, supported Vice President Harris’s campaign. He said he knows from experience that if you “spend enough time in the desert,” water will find you.

“Democrats are now in the desert, and they’re going to have to figure out how to find water again,” he said. “Bill Clinton did it after the Reagan years with the New Democrats. George W. Bush did it with compassionate conservatism. Donald Trump did it with Make America Great Again.”

As Democrats begin to point fingers and pick up the pieces after their brutal election losses, many are wondering how they lost so many swing voters and split-ticket voters. They are left questioning where their messaging went wrong with the working class.

“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 said.

McKinnon noted the large groups of key voting demographics once considered easy pickups for Democrats, including Black and Latino voters and younger people, who swung toward Trump this election.

“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.”