This is a good article calling out the true problems with the campaign.

I keep seeing people blame voters, but the only group to blame is the Democratic Party. Parties exist to serve and represent voters, not the other way round.

The Dems failed to address the genuine concerns of their traditional base - primarily the economy - and that left the race open for the Repulicans.

The Democrat message on the economy seemed to basically be "things are not as bad as you think and we've already done what was needed". Instead they focused on abortion and a threat to democracy as the main issues of the election.

Yet for many lower income households, they rent and have been hit doubly hard by inflation. Home owners have been shielded from the rent portion of the cost of living crisis, and experienced less hardship. The dems did not seem to understand that and effectively left the field open for the republicans.

Looking at the numbers, Trump hasn't significantly grown the Republican vote or if so, it's a relatively small increase. Yet the Democrat vote is way down on where it was in 2020.

There are lots of other failures on the part of the Dems - allowing Biden to run essentially unchallenged, the leadership aggressively pushing back against concerns about his suitability, Biden waiting until very late to step back and Harris being coronated and having to use Bidens existing campaign. Harris was a decent enough candidate but she was given an impossible task thanks to an out of touch and poorly led party.

The Dems lost this election, rather than Trump winning it.