Harris was set up to take the fall?

Basically correct. Biden was so selfish, conceited and arrogant, he blew it.

@BarbaraHoward I agree KH was intrinsically a strong, qualified candidate. But her campaigning skills had not been honed to connect with undecided voters. The primary season serves an important purpose

It was the money. Starting from scratch at that point would have been too difficult.

Possibly also the image - ditching the female VP of colour for a (presumably) younger white man wouldn't have been a great look.

Also, she was undeniably qualified to run - VP, former AG of California etc.

She didn't lose because she was a lower quality candidate than Trump. She was a perfectly valid choice.

I agree with PPs who say funding and timings were the issue.

Having just searched, Reuters says that when Biden dropped out he left the Biden-Harris campaign with about $95M. That was too big an advantage for anyone else to compete with.

OP, I also disagree that there was time to organise primaries. Power to do this resides at state level. 50 primaries would be needed; that is 50 mini-campaigns for the same small set of people. A nightmare, actually. It is a completely different dynamic to the UK.

KH would have been a much stronger candidate she had emerged victorious through a selection process and there is the chance someone else would have done so.

In that sense I agree she was set up to fail, OP. I blame Biden, his family and his cronies for a good deal of this disaster.

The Democrats had to pick Harris because of the message it would send out if they didn't, they'd be telling people that they believed their current Vice President was unfit for the office they were already in. It would be an admission of failure in the current administration, which is a bad look if you're trying to get people to vote your party in again.

Sort of an understanding among the political circles - makes sense

I think this is the end of her presidential hopes tbh

Agree that whoever replaced Biden at the last minute was on a hiding to nothing. The man was clearly struggling as his Presidency wore on, and to think that he'd be OK to serve a second term was just madness.

Allowing him to continue has really bitten them on the arse.

True. But mid term results were quite good for the Dems? My son lived in the US for a few years. He thinks without Covid Trump would have been reelected and the nightmare would be over now.

I don't think you're unreasonable at all, completely agree

I could believe one of the other potentials who in the end didn't put their hat in the ring thinking "hmm not this time, in four years will be better". But at an individual level, not a party-wide conspiracy to drop Harris in it.

There wasn’t enough time to do a proper election to choose a candidate, was left so late to choose someone because of Biden and his team stubbornly holding on when it was clear that was insane. He stepped down near the end of July (21st), with the best will in the world that’s not enough time to go through the proper process to choose the new candidate and then campaign on whatever their issues would have been before the election.

The money was the key issue. Election campaigns are eye wateringly expensive. The money had been donated to Biden-Harris. You needed Biden or Harris on the ticket to keep the money. Even standing as Harris-Walz to retain the money initially looked like it could be problematic. There was no time and no possible way to raise the money for a fresh candidate to mount a convincing campaign. And tbh there wasn’t a clear alternative that would have united the Democratic vote any more than Harris did.

The Republicans need Michelle Obama.

I thought it was the funding that was the issue. They had to go with Harris after covering for Biden was too hard

There were millions already donated by then. So it had to be the VP to keep that

Exactly this. He is to blame for this disaster.

When Biden got in I assumed the plan was for him to serve a year or two then stand down due to age and let Harris step in, on the basis that America would never elect her but if she did a good job they might re-elect her. It was so obvious, except that clearly, and disappointingly, wasn't the plan after all.

They didn’t have time to go through candidate selection because Biden wouldn’t quit. His team should have dropped him in it two years ago.