DNC chair says his party needs to 'battle the damage to the Democratic brand'

Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison said that the party's brand had been damaged.

Harrison during the 2020 election failed in his bid to unseat GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

"I think what we have to do as a party is battle the damage to the Democratic brand," Harrison said during an episode of The New Abnormal, according to the Daily Beast. "I experienced it on my own race, Lindsey [Graham] and his crew of dark money effectively labeled me as somebody who believed in defunding the police. My grandfather on my stepfather's side was in the Detroit police department for 40 years. So I don't believe in that. But they were able to do it because the Democratic brand had been so tarnished in South Carolina that people would believe anything. If they said, 'Jamie kicked a puppy the other day,' they would have believed it."

Harrison noted that there are issues with the party's brand even among Democrats.

"It's not even just with Republicans, the Democrat brand with some of the folks who are core at the base of our party is not the greatest,” Harrison said. "And so I want to spend a lot of time, energy, and effort understanding why the brand is where it is, what it is and how, and what we can do in order to improve it."