The Democratic National Committee released a long-awaited autopsy of the party’s failed 2024 presidential campaign on Thursday, but party leaders took the awkward position of asserting that the report itself “does not meet our standards.”
The report was released “for full transparency,” according to DNC Chair Ken Martin, who has faced months of anger over his earlier decision to withhold it. But the document, described by party officials as a draft, opens with the DNC disavowing its contents and stating it “cannot independently verify the claims presented.”
While it might be tempting for Democrats to point to narrow margins of defeat for Kamala Harris and downballot candidates and argue they need to tweak rather than overhaul their approach, the report says, this “denialist” thinking “prevents the Party from seeking real accountability” and making necessary changes.
The report, which was prepared by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera, argues that the White House, under President Joe Biden, did not do enough to set Harris up for political success.
“The White House did not position or prepare the Vice President,” the report says. “Had the White House explored and evaluated ways to leverage Kamala Harris earlier in the administration, perhaps it would have improved the President’s standing, and it certainly could have helped prepare her to lead the ticket.”
The White House told the DNC to do polling ahead of the 2022 midterms to assess how then-first lady Jill Biden could support her husband – but no such polling was done to support Harris as vice president, the report says.
The autopsy also says Democrats did not attack Trump forcefully enough, suggesting many in the party believed Trump’s negatives were so “baked in” that negative advertising would be of limited use. Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Harris, focused on making an economic case for Harris because the issue was the top concern for voters, the report says, but Harris still “lost the economic argument.”
Pollsters told Harris’s campaign leadership that the data suggested “even measured breaks” with then-President Biden would help her politically, but saw “little movement” on that front.
The committee’s initial decision to withhold the report was driven in part by Martin’s desire to avoid reigniting the finger-pointing that consumed the party after the 2024 loss. Democrats have been notching a string of wins at the ballot box since then.
But holding back the report caused consternation within the Democratic establishment, prompting some to question Martin’s leadership. And the messy process of drafting and releasing the document has been embarrassing as the party tries to turn the page on 2024 and move on to winning races later this year.
Prominent Democrats vented Thursday that the report was mishandled — complaining about both its quality and the monthslong back-and-forth over whether to share it. Some went further to call for Martin’s resignation as DNC chair.
Dan Pfeiffer, a political commentator and former top Obama adviser, said Martin is “not the right person to lead the DNC at this time.” Danielle Butterfield, the executive director of Priorities USA, a progressive super PAC, said Martin is “preventing us from moving forward.”
“It’s pretty damning that instead of actually talking about the substance of the report, we’re just talking about whether or not Ken Martin should resign,” Butterfield said.
Martin defended the decision to keep the report private last year in a statement to The Washington Post. “Here’s our North Star: Does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission,” he said.
On Thursday, Martin released what amounted to a mea culpa.
“After last November’s massive Democratic wins, I didn’t want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction,” Martin said. “For that, I sincerely apologize.”
The report, he wrote in a statement, was “not ready for primetime” when he got it last year.
CNN was the first to obtain the 2024 autopsy.
The report delves into decision-making during the 2024 presidential race. During Harris’s campaign, the report said, pollsters recognized that Trump’s ads attacking her stance on transgender issues were “very effective” and concluded that if “the Vice President would not change her position – and she did not – then there was nothing which would have worked as a response.”
The draft leaves out some notable sources of friction for Democrats in 2024 – including criticism from the party’s left over the Biden administration’s strong support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
The autopsy goes beyond decisions made during the 2024 campaign, lamenting that in the years since Barack Obama’s landslide presidential victory in 2008, “Democrats have lost ground at every level of government” and missed opportunities to invest in states and local officials. It also suggests Democrats need to engage earlier with voters and put more money into voter contact, pointing to the conservative youth group Turning Point USA as an example of Republicans’ year-round efforts.
The report calls for greater focus on voters in “Middle America” and the South, who it laments have “come to believe they are not included in the Democratic vision.”
“Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate,” the report states.
The document also says it drew on “publicly and commercially available data” as well as interviews with more than 300 people and organizations. An annotation on the document by the DNC says that the source material was not provided and that “unsourced claims cannot be independently verified.”
The autopsy says the Democratic Party and its candidates have lost voters’ trust. “In the face of misinformation and disinformation, our candidates have proven incapable of projecting strength, unity, and leadership, and voters have drifted away,” it says.
And it echoes other warnings from top Democrats about population shifts away from blue states – and the resulting potential changes in political representation after the 2030 census.
Democratic officials, including at the DNC, have touted the party’s over-performance in elections around the country in the past year as a sign that the political tides are turning in their favor. But the autopsy warns Democrats against drawing a “false sense of security” from their success in 2025.
“A dive into the details shows some of these elections were tighter than Democrats should be comfortable with, and point to room for improvement in future efforts,” the report states.
The release comes at a trying time for the Democratic National Committee. Despite wins at the ballot box, the committee holds $18 million in debt, according to its most recent fundraising report, with only $14 million in the bank.
“I hope we can find the money for an autopsy of the rollout of the autopsy,” said Alyssa Cass, a Democratic operative in New York.
