Sherman Harris, the cousin of former United States Vice President Kamala Harris, attributes her loss in the US presidential election last November to poor strategising, arguing that her message needed to reach a broader audience.

“A lot of the people who supported her worked very hard but I think that the organisation needed to be structured in a wider system that reached more people and was beneficial to more people,” Sherman told Observer Online in an interview at his home in St Ann, the northern Jamaica parish from where Kamala’s father Donald hails.

Harris suffered a bruising election loss to Donald Trump on November 6, with the Republican candidate sweeping all seven battleground states and becoming the first GOP representative to win the popular vote in 20 years.

Her cousin Sherman suggested that her campaign “used an old system” which failed to effectively compete digitally against Trump, whose digital strategy was boosted by X owner Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine.

Indeed, many Democrats believe that Harris’ campaign made a poor decision by not having her appear on the popular Joe Rogan podcast ahead of the election, a move that would have been similar to that of Trump whose interview with Rogan drew more than 45 million views prior to the polls.

Despite being of the belief that his cousin would have made a better president than Trump, Sherman noted that he disagreed with several of Kamala’s liberal views.

“There are things that she supports that I really don’t support like the abortion – I’m a Catholic, I don’t support that in no way – and homosexuality. I don’t support that in any way either but people across the world have rights to support and do what they want to do so we can’t change people’s minds,” he said.

Still, he said he was “disappointed” about Kamala’s loss and noted that the American electorate who chose Trump “will have to live with it for now.”

Asked about his thoughts on Trump as president, Sherman shared: “I think he will do a good job if he changes a lot of his ways and things that he does like running the people out the country, getting rid of them and that sort of thing. If he doesn’t do that and mainly focuses on growing the country some more, then he can be a great guy.”

Sherman clarified, however, that he doesn’t view Trump as a “wonderful person”, even though he has no problem with him.

As for what’s next for Kamala, Sherman smiled, saying his cousin “can be anything, she can be anything, she can be anything. Kamala has the potential in many ways and is a very versatile human. She can be anything.”