Vice President Kamala Harris’ advisers said they were “surprised” to see that public polls showed her ahead of Donald Trump in September and October before the election – as internal polls showed her trailing.

“We were behind. I mean, I think it surprised people because there were public polls in late September, early October that showed us clues that we never saw,” David Plouffe, Harris’ senior campaign adviser, said on “Pod Save America. ”

Harris’ team sat down for an interview with the podcast that came out Tuesday and talked about what went wrong that caused her to lose every swing state. The team admitted they had trouble coming up with a coherent messaging strategy since Harris entered the race just over 100 days after Election Day and had to climb out of the voting hole President Biden found himself in.

The campaign spoke about the difficulties they faced in figuring out how to distance Harris from 82-year-old President Biden since they were part of the same administration, despite voters’ concerns.

“She felt like she was part of the administration. So why would she look back and pick out things she would have done differently when she was part of it? And she also had enormous loyalty to President Biden,” said Harris adviser Stefanie Cutter.

Harris had refused to completely divorce herself from Biden and his unpopular economic and border policies, saying on ABC’s “The View” that “nothing comes to mind” when asked how her administration would differ from that of her predecessor.

Cutter added: “Imagine if we had said, ‘Well, we would have taken this approach at the border.’ Imagine the series of stories that come out after those of people saying, “Well, she never said that at a meeting,” or “What meeting when she said this,” or “I remember her doing that.” ‘ And it was just, it wouldn’t give us what we needed, because it wouldn’t be a clean breakthrough.”

Harris aides also agreed that the failed campaign showed that the Democratic Party must rethink its strategy if it wants to win in 2028.

Plouffe argued that it is “very difficult for Democrats to win battleground states,” while deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Democrats are “losing the culture war.”

Democrats are “eating their own” through the “woke” culture, while Republicans remain steadfast and unapologetic, Fulks said, arguing that “until that stops, we won’t be able to address many of the problems to grab. things that just need to be said.”

The team noted that Trump experienced high turnout among early voters and had an aggressive online strategy that reached voters on TikTok and through podcasts.

“Republicans have a well-tuned, well-oiled, well-invested echo chamber that exists outside of where they campaign. And it’s online. It resonates through TikTok. It reverberates through the culture,” Fulks said.

“There are cultural dynamics at play in politics today that are coming together like we’ve never seen.”

Campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon claimed the race had been “very close” – despite Harris having lost all seven critical swing states.

“So we lost and that really sucks… we obviously believed we could get this done,” O’Malley Dillon acknowledged. “And that’s something we all have to live with and will have to live with for the next four years.”