The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has finally released its autopsy on the 2024 election disaster, but even the DNC chair could not defend it. “I don’t endorse what’s in this report,” Ken Martin conceded as the autopsy went public on Thursday. After several months of withholding the document to avoid distraction, Martin admitted that the report was not ready for release and would have required a complete overhaul.
Report’s Disclaimers and Criticisms
The draft report exists in a strange limbo, simultaneously being and not being the DNC’s official autopsy. A red disclaimer on every page states that “this document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC,” and the DNC “cannot independently verify the claims presented.” Many pages include red boxed insertions challenging claims, such as “No sourcing provided for several claims in this section” and “Appears to conflate family and sick leave.”
The report has drawn harsh critiques from mainstream media. The New York Times reported that the autopsy “is disorganized and leaves empty entire sections” while “often veering into political clichés and hard-to-follow explanations.” A CNN analysis noted that the autopsy “contains lots of errors and curious inclusions – even some that are puzzling to have in a draft.”
Evasion of Key Issues
The autopsy avoids discussing two critical political decisions: allowing Joe Biden to run for re-election until it was too late, and then coronating Kamala Harris as the nominee without any voter input. Instead, it focuses on ad buys and fundraising, failing to address why millions of voters, especially the young, were uninspired by the Democratic ticket.
Most notably, the autopsy completely dodges the issue of Gaza. In nearly 50,000 words, the words “Gaza,” “Palestinians,” “Israel,” or “genocide” never appear. Yet credible accounts indicate that the autopsy’s author, Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, privately acknowledged that Harris’s stance on Gaza hurt her election chances. Margaret DeReus, executive director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, stated that DNC officials’ own data found Biden’s support for Israel to be a net-negative for Democrats in 2024.
Polling Data Ignored
The report ignores clear polling data showing the damage from Harris’s support for arming Israel. An August 2024 IMEU/YouGov poll in three swing states found that for every vote Harris might lose by supporting an arms embargo on Israel, she stood to gain five votes. The exclusion of such information reflects a systemic failure within the DNC to reflect the majority views of registered Democrats, 75% of whom agree that “Israel is committing genocide,” and 80% of whom have an unfavorable view of Israel according to Pew Research.
Last summer, while a Gallup poll showed only 8% of Democrats approved of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, Martin claimed at a DNC meeting that “there’s a divide in our party on this issue.” The real divide is between top-ranking Democrats and the party’s base.
Conclusion
The DNC’s autopsy embodies the disconnect between party leadership and its base, rather than addressing it. The crisis of Democratic leadership undermines the party’s potential to roll back Republican power in the midterms and win the presidency in 2028. Norman Solomon, director of RootsAction and author of The Blue Road to Trump Hell, suggests that a coherent alternative to the DNC’s autopsy is the one his group released months ago.
