WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s name wasn’t on the ballot, but history will likely remember Vice President Kamala Harris’ resounding defeat as his loss too.

As Democrats pick up the pieces after President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory, some of Harris’ backers are expressing frustration that Biden’s decision to seek reelection until this summer — despite long-standing voter concerns about his age and unease about post-pandemic inflation as well as the U.S.-Mexico border — all but sealed his party’s surrender of the White House.

“The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden,” said Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden in 2020 for the Democratic nomination and endorsed Harris’ unsuccessful run. “If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place.”

Biden will leave office after leading the United States out of the worst pandemic in a century, galvanizing international support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion and passing a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that will affect communities for years to come.

But having run four years ago against Trump to “restore the soul of the country,” Biden will make way after just one term for his immediate predecessor, who overcame two impeachments, a felony conviction and an insurrection launched by his supporters. Trump has pledged to radically reshape the federal government and roll back many of Biden’s priorities.

“Maybe in 20 or 30 years, history will remember Biden for some of these achievements,” said Thom Reilly, co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University. “But in the shorter term, I don’t know he escapes the legacy of being the president who beat Donald Trump only to usher in another Donald Trump administration four years later.”

Biden on Thursday avoided directly addressing the electorate’s seeming repudiation of his presidency. Instead, he noted that Americans will feel the effects of the administration’s signature legislative efforts for years.

“Don’t forget all that we accomplished,” Biden said in a brief Rose Garden address attended by Cabinet members and top aides but not by Harris. “It’s been a historic presidency — not because I am president but because of what we’ve done. What you’ve done.”

The president added: “Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable. We all get knocked down, but the measure of our character, as my dad would say, is how quickly we get back up.”

He issued a statement shortly after Harris delivered her concession speech Wednesday, praising her for running a “historic campaign” under “extraordinary circumstances.”

Some high-ranking Democrats, including three advisers to the Harris campaign, expressed deep frustration with Biden for failing to recognize earlier in the election cycle that he was not up to the challenge. The advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Biden, 81, ended his reelection campaign in July, weeks after an abysmal debate performance sent his party into a spiral and raised questions about whether he still had the mental acuity and stamina to serve as a credible nominee.

But polling long beforehand showed that many Americans worried about his age. Some 77% of Americans said in August 2023 that Biden was too old to be effective for four more years, according to a poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs.

The president bowed out on July 21 after getting not-so-subtle nudges from Democratic Party powers, including former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., an ally of Biden and Harris, said in a statement that Democrats lost the thread on working-class Americans’ concerns.

“Will the big-money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” he said. “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing?”

The strategists advising the Harris campaign said the compressed campaign timetable made it even more difficult for Harris to differentiate herself from Biden.

Had Biden stepped aside early in the year, they said, it would have given Democrats enough time to hold a primary. Going through the paces of an intraparty contest would have forced Harris or another eventual nominee to more aggressively stake out differences with Biden.

Matt Bennett, executive vice president at the Democratic-aligned group Third Way, said this moment was the most devastating the party has faced in his life.

“Harris was dealt a really bad hand. Some of it was Biden’s making and some maybe not,” said Bennett, who served as an aide to Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton administration. “Would Democrats fare better if Biden had stepped back earlier? I don’t know if we can say for certain, but it’s a question we’ll be asking ourselves for some time.”