Vice President Kamala Harris’ luring of celebrities out of their mansions to perform songs for middle-class voters struggling to afford groceries and rent was symbolic of an attitude that ultimately doomed her presidential campaign.

It’s not clear that these endorsements had any impact, but they cast Ms. Harris as an out-of-touch elitist dismissive of voters’ concerns about the economy, strategists say.

“She rolled out Taylor Swift and all these people to talk about the decline of democracy, but she didn’t address the Number One issue, which was inflation, and that is what did her in,” said Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist. “She never drove home the issue of inflation, she talked about other things.”

Headed into Election Day, voters consistently cited inflation and the economy as the top issue. Of the 31% of voters who listed the economy as their top issue, 79% voted for President-elect Donald Trump, according to exit polling by CNN.

Among voters who earn less than $50,000 a year, roughly 50% voted for Mr. Trump, compared to 48% who voted for Ms. Harris. However, Ms. Harris fared better with voters earning $100,00 or more, 51% to 46%.

Ms. Harris also dropped 16 points among voters of color without a college degree, compared to President Biden’s performance in 2020. Mr. Trump also maintained his advantage with White males and females without a college degree in both the 2020 and 2024 races, a CNN exit poll found.

“Millions of hardworking, middle-class families donated to Kamala’s campaign,” said GOP strategist Jimmy Keady, but instead of connecting with those voters, she brought out pop stars in a move that showed Democrats are “out of touch with middle America.”

Even some in the Democratic establishment concluded failing to appeal to working-class voters was the cause of death for Ms. Harris’ campaign.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class abandoned them,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont Independent, in a scathing statement. “First, it was the White working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she “respectfully” disagreed with Ms. Sanders’ assessment. Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison also angrily rebuked Mr. Sanders’ claims.

In a post on X, Mr. Harrison said the senator’s comments were “straight up BS.” He added that Mr. Biden was the “most pro-worker president of my lifetime” and Ms. Harris’ economic proposals would have “fundamentally transformed the quality of life and closed the racial wealth gap for working people across the country.”

Ms. Harris in August proposed banning “price-gouging” by grocery stores and food suppliers as a way to lower the cost of housing, medicine, and food. Under the plan, Ms. Harris would have authorized the Federal Trade Commission to impose “harsh penalties” on corporations found to have fixed prices.

But she never defined the plan or explained how it would lower prices. Some economists charged it would have the opposite effect, because it would reduce competition by artificially lowering profit margins. The competition, they argued, is what kept prices low in the first place.

Republicans compared the idea to Soviet Union-style price controls. Once the criticism mounted, Ms. Harris downplayed and distanced herself from the idea.

“I kept waiting for her to follow up on her [anti-price gouging] proposal but she never did, and I think that’s an issue that could have won her more support among voters concerned about inflation,” Mr. Bannon said. “She never drove the issue home. Instead, she rolled out Taylor Swift to talk about the decline of democracy. She didn’t address the Number One concern of the voters.”

Ms. Harris had also proposed building more houses to reduce residential costs and expanding the child tax credit, which she said would offset costs, but offered few other details.

In her “closing argument” speech on the Ellipse in Washington, Ms. Harris never uttered the words “inflation” or “economy.” Instead, she mentioned Mr. Trump 27 times, and either “abortion” or “reproductive rights five times.

In contrast, during Mr. Trump’s closing argument at Madison Square Garden, he mentioned “inflation” once and the economy 12 times.

David Dix, a Democratic strategist, said the party shouldn’t be surprised that it’s been perceived as out of touch. He said Democrats haven’t had a real primary process since President Obama’s election in 2008. Since then, the party elites pushed Hillary Clinton, Mr. Biden and then Ms. Harris in front of voters, he said.

“It’s been an elite group of folks picking these candidates for over a decade and that disconnects you with the grassroots voters,” he said. “Vice President Harris didn’t have to go through the party primary to be the nominee. The problem with that is it helps you message test what resonates.”

Mr. Dix said the over-reliance on celebrity endorsements from Beyonce, Cardi B, Oprah and others is evidence that the campaign was “disconnected from the grassroots.” He said the fact that none of the celebrities showed up to Ms. Harris’ Election Night watch party at Howard University was striking.

“It says that they weren’t in it for the campaign, they were in it for the appearance. That made them ring hollow,” he said. “When you are trying to connect with the American people you need to show some empathy and say, ’I have a path.’”

That voters held Ms. Harris responsible for inflation is evidence that some of Mr. Biden’s unpopularity rubbed off on her. Poll after poll showed that the economy was the main issue, most voters had a positive opinion of Mr. Trump’s economy and more voters trusted Mr. Trump than either Mr. Biden or Ms. Harris on the economy.

Mr. Biden remains one of the least popular presidents in modern history because of his age and the cost of living that soared on his watch. It put Ms. Harris in a difficult spot. She couldn’t blame Mr. Biden for inflation without raising questions about her own role in his policies. That left her flat-footed and unprepared when asked how she would differentiate herself from the president.

When asked on ABC’s “The View,” what she would have done differently than Mr. Biden, Mrs. Harris said she couldn’t think of anything. The unprepared answer gave the Trump campaign to tie his unpopularity to her.

It also left her without a scapegoat for soaring inflation, which was largely linked to Mr. Biden’s rampant government spending. Under Mr. Biden’s first three years, he approved several massive spending bills, causing the national debt to jump by $6.25 trillion. Rising debt reduces business investment and slows economic growth, both factors in increasing inflation.

Other economists say global supply-chain shortages during the pandemic were another key driver of high prices.

Since Ms. Harris refused to throw her boss under the bus, she was left blaming corporate greed. But as the campaign wore on, Ms. Harris turned to billionaire surrogates such as Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon. An analysis by Forbes found that 83 billionaires supported Harris compared to 52 who backed Mr. Trump, such as Elon Musk. Many of those backers came from Silicon Valley.

With those surrogates firmly entrenched in her camp, she dropped the corporate greed argument and looked even more out-of-touch and elitist.

Mr. Keady, the Republican strategist, said Ms. Harris cozying up to billionaires made it hard to connect to working Americans.

“From the lack of union support to the loss of manufacturing jobs, working middle-class families are abandoning the Democratic Party for the business and worker-friendly policies of the Republican Party,” he said. “We saw this first-hand in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan that flipped on Tuesday.”

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.