Plouffe on Harris loss: 'It's really hard for Democrats to win battleground states'

David Plouffe, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign, said it’s difficult for his party to win the swing states, in his first postmortem interview since President-elect Trump’s victory earlier this month.

In an interview on Crooked Media’s “Pod Save America,” hosted by former Obama aides, Plouffe joined his 2024 campaign colleagues to reflect on what went wrong in the race.

“It’s always worth reminding people: It’s really hard for Democrats to win battleground states, OK? Let’s look at Pennsylvania: 25 percent of the electorate is liberal, roughly, 34 percent is conservative,” Plouffe said. “So in every battleground state, there’s more conservatives than liberals.”

The Democratic strategist said even though Vice President Harris won liberal voters by a greater margin than Trump won conservative ones, and won moderate voters, she did not win moderates by enough to close the gap in the state.

“In Pennsylvania, if exits are to be believed, Trump won conservatives 91-8. Harris won Liberals 93–6. Moderates, Harris won 56-43. But you kind of got to win 60 percent of them, right?” Plouffe said. “So, you know, for Democrats to win battleground states, to Quentin and Jen’s point, it is a false choice.”

He added that Democrats have to perform well across all demographics.

“You want to maximize your base, of course. And that was a place where we spent enormous time, a lot of resources. That’s critical,” Plouffe said, noting that turnout was strong in Milwaukee but fell short in Philadelphia and Detroit. “So that’s not good. That’s part of the equation.”

“You’ve got to couple that with dominating in the middle,” he continued. “Not just winning it a little. We have to dominate the moderate vote.”

Plouffe also noted Democrats “can’t afford” to lose any more of its base going into future elections.

“And I think as we look ahead to ’26 and ’28, particularly where you have seen drift amongst noncollege voters generally, particularly those of color, specifically, you know, we obviously have to get some of that back. We can’t afford any more erosion. The math just doesn’t f‑‑‑ing work, okay?”

“But, I don’t think this is a permanent realignment, but the point here is to win battleground states. Yes, of course you have to maximize your turnout and your vote share amongst liberal voters if you’re a Democrat," he added. "That was a huge focus. You’ve got to win the center."

Harris campaign Chair Jen O'Malley Dillon, among other advisers, also joined the podcast to discuss the loss. In a call with top donors Tuesday, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), defended their roughly three-month campaign.