Election Day 2024 live results: Harris urges importance of accepting election results

Progressive independent Bernie Sanders, who won re-election in Vermont Tuesday, put out a scathing statement Wednesday about the Democratic party's "disastrous" campaign.

"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. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right," Sanders said.

In addition to reflections on the ways that the party has failed to deliver economic stability to working class people, the statement also criticized the continued spending of "billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government’s all-out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children. "

He said a "'serious discussion" is now merited about the path forward and cast doubt on the party's ability to learn its lesson.

"Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not."

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin

Closing out her concession speech, Vice President Kamala Harris urged her supporters to remain optimistic despite the loss.

"I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case," she said. "But here’s the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars."

In her concession speech, Vice President Kamala Harris said she told former President Donald Trump that her team would "engage in a peaceful transfer of power."

"A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results," Harris said. "That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny. And anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it."

Vice President Kamala Harris has begun her concession speech at Howard University.

"The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for," Harris said in the opening of her remarks. "But hear me when I say, the light of America's promise will always burn bright -- as long as we never give up, and as long as we keep fighting."