I Was a DNC Delegate who Voted to Nominate Kamala Harris. I Have No Regrets.

Democrats should focus less on the blame game and more on the future.

One year ago, President Joe Biden made the decision to step aside and end his bid for re-election. As a Democratic National Convention delegate, I was part of the process that followed — and we delegates made the decision to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris in his place. Some called it too late. Others called it too safe. Many now say it was a mistake.

But hindsight, especially in politics, often masquerades as wisdom. The truth is harder to accept but more honest: 2024 was a tough year. That doesn’t make Biden a bad leader. It doesn’t make Harris a weak candidate. It just makes it a tough year.

Biden had good reasons to stay in the race. He had already defeated Donald Trump once. He led the country through a pandemic, invested in infrastructure, revived U.S. alliances, and presided over a growing, if uneven, economy. Until the summer of 2024, there was no consensus alternative and realistically his decision not to run would have needed to come years earlier – on the heels of his 2020 victory – to offer enough runway for a viable replacement to emerge. At that time he had just defeated Trump, so the argument he could not do so again had limited support. His eventual decision to step aside wasn’t a failure of judgment, but rather a recognition of how fast things can shift.

When that moment came, we nominated Vice President Harris — the only candidate with national experience, existing infrastructure, and a clear mandate to lead. It wasn’t a compromise. It was the best choice we had.

Harris stepped into a nearly impossible situation: less than four months to unite the party, reintroduce herself to the electorate, and build a campaign from Biden’s shell. She inherited skeptical donors, a frayed base, and a media primed to question her every move.

And yet she ran with clarity and conviction. She wasn’t the reason we lost.

Voters in 2024 — much like in 2016 and 2020 — were hungry for something new. That restlessness helped elect Biden four years earlier, and it likely helped Trump return. By the time Harris took the baton, the public’s fatigue wasn’t just about candidates — it was about the system, the endless noise, the feeling that nothing was changing fast enough. Even a qualified and charismatic candidate couldn’t fully outrun that climate.

Since the election, some have floated the idea that Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, or another rising star could’ve done better. Maybe. But none of them declared, none were vetted on a national stage, and none had the time to build a real campaign. Newsom looks stronger now than he might have looked then — but presidential politics isn’t about who trends well. It’s about who can survive sustained fire. That takes preparation.

The decision to nominate Harris wasn’t driven by identity politics or institutional inertia. It was driven by readiness. She was the one person already in the arena. And yes, her identity resonated given that the majority of Americans has never seen themselves represented in the Oval Office.

The temptation now is to assign blame: to Biden for waiting too long, to Harris for falling short, to the party for playing it safe. But what if this wasn’t a failure? What if this was simply the best possible outcome under the circumstances?

The 2024 loss wasn’t the fault of any one person or one moment. It was the result of inflation anxiety, post-pandemic fatigue, relentless disinformation, and an electorate that, for better or worse, remains deeply unsettled. Not every challenge has a political solution.

And so here is what I’d ask, one year later: Can we acknowledge that not every loss means someone failed? That not every tough outcome has a villain? That sometimes, in politics as in life, you do the right thing — and still come up short?

Joe Biden did the right thing. Kamala Harris gave everything she had. We chose her — and I don’t regret that for a second.