Bernie Sanders criticizes Democratic party after Trump's victory

Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a blistering statement criticizing the Democratic party after another loss to President-elect Donald Trump.

'It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,' the 83-year-old senator from Vermont wrote on social media.

Sanders, who identifies as a Democratic socialist, shared his statement just before Vice President Kamala Harris' concession speech.

Sanders said that it was the white working class who first delivered turned on Democrats, but that they had now been joined by black and Latino workers.

'While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,' he wrote. 'And they’re right.'

Sanders also specifically referred to the struggle of young people, facing a working environment threatened with the rise of artificial intelligence and robotics.

'Today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, many young people will have a worse standard of living than their parents,' he wrote.

The former presidential contender also condemned the billions of dollars sent by the Biden-Harris administration to the Israeli government to fund the war in Gaza, leading to a 'humanitarian disaster.'

Sanders also condemned the 'big money interests' and 'well paid consultants' that he claimed controlled the Democratic party, saying that they had refused to learn the lessons of past campaigns.

'Do they have any idea as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful oligarchy which has so much economic and political power?' He asked. 'Probably not.'

He vowed to participate in 'some very serious political discussions' and concluded by urging his supporters to 'stay tuned.'

The statement immediately sparked speculation that Sanders was considering running again for president, however he would be 87 in 2028. 

The race initially appeared neck-and-neck as Americans went to the polls Tuesday after a tense months-long build-up that peaked when Joe Biden abandoned his quest for a second term and the Democratic party ushered Vice President Harris to the fore.

Throughout the night, the campaign highlighted data points that could spell surprise good news for Harris - higher-than-expected turnout in Philadelphia, votes yet to be counted in Detroit. 

But in the end Harris didn't improve upon President Joe Biden's performance against Trump four years ago. 

Democrats had been counting on holding the trio of states - Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania - to give Harris the White House.  Biden won them in 2020.

But Trump won them instead, giving him 292 electoral votes to Harris's 224. It takes 270 to win the presidency. 

Harris is now on track to do worse than Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. She could even be on pace to have the worst Electoral College result of any Democrat since the 1988 race. 

Trump is the first president in over 130 years, and only the second in history, to win a non-consecutive second term. 

Exit polls show his victory came after he made gains with nearly every voting bloc he lost in the 2020 election and put together a coalition of multi-ethnic working-class voters.

And Harris did worse on Tuesday than Biden in the 2020 contest among key voting groups including women, the working class and Latinos. 

The exit polls suggested voters trusted Trump more to fix the economy.

They overwhelmingly believed the Biden-Harris administration had put the country on the wrong track.

Democrat candidate Harris' support came from her party's strongholds on the East and West coast in states like New York, Delaware, and California.

A notable difference between this year's election night and that of 2020 is that fewer voters - which leaned Democrat - used mail-in ballots, while states have been quicker to process those votes.

Four years ago, that meant Trump's votes were often counted first as his supporters voted in-person, before Biden votes piled in later and helped the incumbent president to a late victory.

This year, however, the number of voters from both sides using mail-in ballots are more even, meaning the Harris campaign cannot count on large batches of outstanding votes to put her over the line in the key battleground states.

That prompted many election watchers and political experts stateside to predict a Trump victory as early vote counts suggested a favorable result across several swing states, leaving Kamala's supporters at election watch parties in for a long night.

By 2:30am ET, Trump had won Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, capturing three of the seven heavily contested battlegrounds and coming within a few electoral votes of winning the presidency.

He declared victory and took to the stage in Florida to deliver a lengthy speech to legions of adoring fans, that also featured shout outs to the likes of his vice presidential pick JD Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Elon Musk and UFC President Dana White.

The Republicans also reclaimed control of the Senate, picking up seats in West Virginia and Ohio.

Top House races are focused in New York and California, where Democrats are trying to claw back some of the 10 or so seats where Republicans have made surprising gains in recent years.

The upset led CNN Strategist Scott Jennings delivered a stinging indictment of the 'political information complex', noting that the story that had been portrayed about Harris' chances was, 'not true'.