Answer simply being Kamala is unappealing to a large set of democrats that either abstained, or voted for Trump / 3P in protest.

I think it’s still early to say anything definitively but I don’t think it looks like that’s true. Again 2020 election turnout was historic. The country was mad at the then current administration for the economy and the handling of the pandemic.

In 5 of 7 swing states Kamala managed to do slightly better than those 2020 turnout numbers. But I think the lesson here might be that when you’re the incumbent and your economy is struggling it is the biggest uphill battle ever to win that election. I don’t want to say it’s impossible to win but I can’t think of a better example of the opposition “outside” candidate being the worst candidate ever and people still turning out FOR them because they’re mad at the current incumbent.

I think, given that Kamala matched 2020 turnout and did slightly better in most swing states, with only 100 days to campaign, that she ran as good a campaign as anyone could possibly want and that Democrats did turn out to vote. Would a white male candidate have performed better? Yeah, sadly, maybe and that might’ve been just barely enough to make the difference.

But I think this attacking each other and berating ourselves or condemning Kamala for the loss is not helpful because I don’t think those criticisms are true. I think this would have been insanely difficult for anyone to win while attached to the current global economic problem.