Joe Biden 'could have withdrawn sooner' to limit damage to 'risky' candidate Kamala Harris, former Obama aide claims

Speaking to GB News, campaign aide Spencer Critchley, who worked on Obama's election campaign, claimed Harris was already a "risky candidate" against Trump, but her "gender and race" gave her an "extra handicap" in securing victory.

Delivering his verdict on the Democrat loss, Critchley explained: "I don't think she was the wrong candidate, but I would say she was a risky candidate.

"I'm not going to blame this result only on the fact that she's a woman and that she's mixed race, but that is definitely a factor - and so electing the first female president in the United States and having it be a non-white candidate was an extra handicap for her."

Predicting the feeling within the Democrat camp following the result, Critchley urged the administration to "pay very close attention" and "understand why this was even close, given, what most other Democrats and many Republicans feel about Donald Trump as a person".

Noting President Biden's decision to step down from the election campaign to allow Harris to compete for the White House, Critchley claimed that the 81-year-old "could have realised his reality sooner" to enable his nominee a longer campaign in the lead up to the election.

Critchley told host Martin Daubney: "Clearly there were signs of his advancing age. And so I think there is a case to be made that he could have recognised that reality sooner, and quite possibly not run for re-election in the first place.

"Clearly he was under a great deal of pressure, but it was up to him to make that decision, which I think was a principled decision. Without having direct knowledge of his actual medical condition, I believe that he is one of the most effective presidents we've had, and will go down in history as such."

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When pressed by Martin on whether the Harris campaign was "too negative" by leading with attacks on Trump, Critchley disagreed, stating: "If we're going to compare negativity, we have only to look at Trump's campaign literally calling his opponents garbage over and over and over again, calling them scum, and he's just won the election."

Martin interjected, arguing: "He won the election by promising to control borders and to fix the economy. But I didn't hear any policies from Kamala Harris other than abortion and Donald Trump, he's a bad guy."

Hitting back at Martin, Critchley responded: "I would disagree with that as well. Now, I am not defending the position that Democrats find themselves in, because we have to recognise that we did not obviously reach more than half the country, with Trump winning not only the Electoral College, but actually winning the popular vote.

"But Democrats, given their view of Donald Trump, is a man who literally tried to overthrow democracy once and has been campaigning on doing it again. He is an authoritarian. You have only to read his words and they do echo and in some cases directly quote Hitler. So we're just calling it the way we see it."

Offering a lesson to the Democrats ahead of the next election, Critchley claimed that they "need to figure out how to get their message across without alienating Trump supporters".

He told GB News: "I've been warning Democrats for a long time that they need to answer this question - if Trump is as bad as he is, how did we lose it?

"I firmly believe he is exploiting his followers - he cares nothing for them, and he's a predatory con man. But whether I'm right or not about Donald Trump's character, how could we possibly lose to this guy?

"Democrats who were excited that we might squeeze out a win, a sort of 51 to 49 win, I've been concerned all along that we would consider that to be remotely acceptable."