MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has called the election an 'absolute repudiation' of Democrats despite Joe Biden's lead in the presidential race, urging the party to examine its lack of appeal to broad swaths of Americans.
'I've got to put a sidebar in here because after the dust settles, if Joe Biden ends up winning the presidency, then I think a lot of people are going to turn to what happened to the Democratic Party,' said Scarborough, the host of Morning Joe, on his Friday show.
'There is no way to put this other than to say ... Joe Biden winning looks like a one-off. This election for the most part was an absolute repudiation of the Democratic Party as a brand. Their brand doesn't work across most of America. It just doesn't,' he continued.
Scarborough cited disappointing results for Democrats in the Senate, where Republicans look set to retain a majority, and the House, where Democrats saw their majority shrink.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has called the election an 'absolute repudiation' of Democrats despite Joe Biden's lead in the presidential race
Though Biden leads in several key states, Scarborough said that dismal results in the Senate and House should prompt Democrats to quickly reassess their messaging and priorities
'They got routed in Senate races they should have won. And I mean, and if you don't believe me, just look back at all the predictions. Are Democrats going to win nine, 10, 11 Senate seats?' a frustrated Scarborugh said.
'The House results are perhaps even more shocking. Nobody thought that this was going to be close. The weekend before the election, Republican pollsters were talking about hemorrhaging support in suburbs and couldn't believe the numbers,' he continued.
'They said, 'We're going to get destroyed.' Well, it ended up [that] they couldn't believe the numbers for a good reason. The numbers were wrong!' Scarborough added.
He also noted that Democrats failed to flip control of a single state legislature, giving Republicans a powerful upper hand in redrawing Congressional districts in the next term, something that occurs every 10 years.
'I was talking to the smartest, smartest data people alive that basically told me that the [poll] numbers were a mirage in Florida and across the upper Midwest,' Scarborough concluded.
'Those same people say that the Republicans are going to have a huge year in 2022 -- just looking at this data, looking at our exit polls -- if they don't correct course, if the Democrats don't correct course.'
Democrats are set to see their House majority shrink after the 2020 elections
Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a moderate Democrat, ripped into party leaders on a conference call on Thursday, complaining liberal demands hurt them on Election Day
Scarborough's lament followed soul-searching from other liberal figures after the Democrats' hotly anticipated 'blue wave' failed to materialize.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat from Virginia who narrowly won a second term on Tuesday night, yelled out her frustration in a caucus conference call on Thursday, accusing party leaders of bowing to demand from the liberals, like members of 'The Squad.'
'We need to be pretty clear,' Spanberger said of election night results. 'It was a failure. It was not a success. We lost incredible members of Congress.'
'No one should say 'defund the police' ever again,' Spanberger said, referring to one of liberals' demands, Politico reported. 'Nobody should be talking about socialism.'
Spanberger, continued to unload on Democratic leaders, warning if the party kept up these tactics in 2022 election: 'We will get f****** torn apart.'
On Thursday, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang warned that the Democratic Party was becoming the party of the 'coastal urban elites' in the eyes of the working class American.
The wealthy New York businessman voiced his concern while appearing on a CNN panel on Wednesday with Don Lemon, sharing an insight to some of the responses he received while on the campaign trail.
'I would say, 'Hey! I'm running for president!' to a truck driver, retail worker, waitress in a diner,' Yang described. 'And they would say, 'What party?' And I'd say 'Democrat' and they would flinch like I said something really negative or I had just turned another color or something like that.'
The wealthy New York businessman voiced his concern while appearing on a CNN panel on Wednesday with Don Lemon
Yang, who is now a CNN contributor, continued: 'And there's something deeply wrong when working-class Americans have that response to a major party that theoretically is supposed to be fighting for them.
'So you have to ask yourself, what has the Democratic Party been standing for in their minds? And in their minds, the Democratic Party, unfortunately, has taken on this role of the coastal urban elites who are more concerned about policing various cultural issues than improving their way of life that has been declining for years!'
Yang asserted that it was a 'fundamental problem for the Democratic Party,' to be so out of touch with working class people. It was then that Yang said that the polarization and divisiveness in the country would 'get worse if the party didn't work to connect with the group.
'They lost a plant that had 1,500 workers. And so if you're a laid-off worker from that plant and you say 'What is the Democratic Party doing for me,' it's unclear,' Yang said.
'We can talk about a unifying message from Joe Biden, he's naturally a unifying figure, but then there's the reality on the ground where their way of life has been disintegrating for years.'
'If we don't that, then we're going to see a continued acceleration towards the institutional mistrust that animated the Trump vote and will continue to do so.'
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