Several Democrat senators privately agreed that their party committed "political malpractice" with the mistakes made on border security, saying it was the main factor leading to President-elect Donald Trump's win and the loss of four of their party's senate seats.
"We destroyed ourselves on the immigration issue in ways that were entirely predictable and entirely manageable. We utterly mismanaged that issue, including our Democratic caucus here," one Democrat senator, who was not identified, told The Hill after a private lunch recently at the Mansfield Room, located off the floor of the Senate, the outlet reported Friday.
During the luncheon, the senators discussed theories about how their party suffered heavy Election Day losses, even though many of them believe President Joe Biden achieved several accomplishments, including bringing a strong economy.
But the lawmakers also agreed that Biden's administration bungled the migrant surge at the southern border.
Some of the Democrats also believed that Biden's decision in May 2023 to lift Title 42, the health order Trump enacted to block migrants, was a huge mistake.
Lifting Title 42 allowed millions of migrants to remain in the United States while their asylum cases were moving slowly through the courts.
Vulnerable Democrat candidates, though, have argued that the bipartisan border security bill negotiated with Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., in February would have given Biden powers to close the border, and claimed that Republicans killed the bill to keep the issue alive during the presidential campaign.
Another unnamed senator told The Hill that "a lot of Democrats" believe Biden and party leaders mismanaged the border crisis, and said he was not happy with Biden's moves to reverse Trump's immigration policies.
Biden not only ended Title 42, but also he stopped Trump's "remain in Mexico" policy and construction of the border wall. Further, Biden enacted a 100-day moratorium on deportations, while pausing other enforcement initiatives.
The senator said he agreed with Biden's decision to cancel Trump's "zero-tolerance" policy on immigrant family separations.
Even before the election, several Democrat senators were warning that ending Title 42 would cause migrations to explode and attempted to pass legislation to protect the emergency measure.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who has blamed the failure of the bipartisan border security bill as a defense for vulnerable incumbents, would not comment in detail about his party's Election Day losses.
He stressed, however, that Senate Democratic incumbents and candidates won in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, all of which Trump carried.
Another senator, after leaving the luncheon, told The Hill, however, that "It was a change election and we were on the wrong side of a change election."
That presented Vice President Kamala Harris with a "difficult task" after she replaced Biden as the party's nominee, as "she would have had to really break [with Biden] on some issues."
Trump was also masterful when linking immigration to the economy and crime, the senator said.
"Trump did this narrative — it wasn't just anti-immigration — he connected it all up to the economy: 'Housing prices are going up, you're losing your job, wages,'" the senator said.