You’re not alone in asking: How the hell did this happen?

Below are three initial thoughts. We’ll all have more as we think together in the days ahead. (If you’re willing to share your thoughts on what happened, we’d love to read them.)

First, the Harris campaign failed to create big fights on the campaign trail that spoke to the #1 issue for voters – high prices, caused by corporate price gouging. A new devastating fact was reported in The Atlantic today about why. See below.

Second, even if Harris did run the best campaign she was capable of, Harris was not the right candidate to speak to working people (and most establishment Democrats are not either). Democrats need to find and run more candidates like Dan Osborn – the mechanic who ran as an Independent and nearly won a Senate seat in Nebraska by running a gut-level economic populist campaign. He outperformed Kamala's margin by 14%. (Imagine if Kamala did 14 points better – landslide.) More on this below…

Third, as we fix our party, we need to navigate some very dark days. More on this below…

Thanks for reading. May the Republic survive.

– Adam Green, PCCC co-founder

1 - Opportunity missed creating economic "moments" on the campaign trail

First, the good news: With economy the top of mind for voters, the Harris campaign’s six pollsters clearly agreed with the economic messaging advice that Politico reported we and our friends at Data For Progress delivered in the West Wing and to the Biden and Harris orbits this past year.

This included an early recommendation to Harris that she focus on "groceries, groceries, groceries" and connect it to corporate price gouging to explain rising prices. Otherwise, Joe Biden and Democrats would be left holding the bag (which is what happened).

An analysis by the Winning Jobs Narrative shows that one billion dollars was spent by Harris and allies on ads about popular economic ideas we recommended – like fighting corporate price gouging on groceries, taxing billionaires, and protecting Social Security. That’s more than ads on abortion, democracy, and immigration combined. We compiled a bunch of them here if you want to check them out.

Now, the bad news. The Harris press shop, charged with using daily events to drive media coverage, pretty much ignored the economy. Frankly, it was malpractice.

The Harris campaign went to Texas to drive news on abortion rights. That was good. They went to the Ellipse to highlight January 6. That was smart too.

But they created no moments these past few months to drive attention to Democrats addressing pocketbook issues. No rally at the headquarters of a price gouging corporation. No barnstorming with the popular president of the UAW or figures like Senator Elizabeth Warren. Meanwhile, Trump was at McDonald's standing with workers, echoing his rally at a downsized plant in 2016 to protest outsourced jobs.

The New York Times’ David Leonhardt wrote about us coining the phrase "Fight Theory" recently: "It’s not enough to have positive messaging," Green said. "Voters must see drama, clash, and an ongoing saga in order for our message to break through a cluttered news environment."

The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer has devastating new reporting today: "While Harris was stuck defending the Biden economy, and hobbled by lingering anger over inflation, attacking Big Business allowed her to go on the offense. Then, quite suddenly, this strain of populism disappeared. One Biden aide told me that Harris steered away from such hard-edged messaging at the urging of her brother-in-law, Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer…To win the support of CEOs, Harris jettisoned a strong argument that deflected attention from one of her weakest issues. Instead, the campaign elevated Mark Cuban as one of its chief surrogates, the very sort of rich guy she had recently attacked."

Let that settle in. If you want to cry, that’s ok.

2 - Even if she gave it her all, Kamala Harris was not the right candidate. Most establishment Democrats aren’t. We need new candidates who feel economic populism in their bones, like Nebraska’s Dan Osborn.

I personally spent a lot of time this year making sure that the economic issues we knew were popular were in the teleprompters of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

It worked. Politico’s Eugene Daniels reported that PCCC messaging on taxing billionaires and protecting Social Security was used "nearly verbatim" in the State Of The Union this year. RealClearPolitics chronicled how Harris’s teleprompter and ads had our messaging time after time.

But to have working-class appeal, it’s not enough to have words in a teleprompter. It has to be in the gut, in the bones. That’s tough when nearly every U.S. Senator is a millionaire and so many politicians spend their entire lives in politics.

(If you are thinking our savior will be billionaire Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker or lifelong politician Gavin Newsom, please trash that idea right away.)

Independent Dan Osborn's margin in deep-red Nebraska was 14 points better than Harris’s against Trump. Imagine if Harris did 14 points better this year. Democratic landslide. That’s the future, if we fight for it.

We need new leadership of the Democratic Party. We must throw out the establishment insiders. We must find more Dan Osborns and Jon Testers, and ask why people like Osborn run as Independents and reject the Democratic Party label. We must embrace smart fights, and lead a movement instead of dragging people to the polls.

3 - Sadly, we need to fix the Democratic Party at the same time we fight some very dark days of fascism to come.

PCCC members did our part this year as we volunteered countless hours and donated over a million dollars in grassroots donations.

Together, we helped win razor-thin victories for U.S. Senate and U.S House candidates that will be essential in the struggle ahead. We also helped win big state legislative and local races, including defeating book banners in key school board races. (A Democratic U.S. House is still possible.)

We’ll have more thoughts in the days ahead about how we can band together to survive this moment. We’re joining many other groups on a solidarity call tonight (Thursday) at 8pm Eastern. Tens of thousands have RSVPed – you can here.

For now, we wanted to offer early reflections. Again, we’d love to hear yours here.

Thank you for doing your part in this fight.

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