Hours after Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin released an incomplete 2024 election autopsy Thursday, DNC members circulated talking points to state party chairs urging them to assert their confidence in him.

“I am fully confident in his leadership,” the messaging guidance reads.

That doesn’t exactly capture the reality inside the DNC.

In private group chats and one-on-one conversations, DNC members were frustrated, confused and angry, according to four people involved in these conversations, granted anonymity to describe private interactions. There’s a brewing crisis over Martin’s leadership, they said, even if it’s not clear what paths, if any, members might opt for to pressure the chair to step down.

“While I don’t believe that there are enough votes to pass a vote of no confidence yet, I think there’s more of a permission structure now to have a more open conversation about it,” said one of those DNC members, who is also a Martin ally. “If they think this is going to make things go away, no, this is only going to ramp up now.”

The still fomenting fallout over the report’s release is the latest twist in Martin’s fraught tenure leading the DNC, marred by poor fundraising and public clashes with other DNC leaders. Even Democrats’ double-digit romps in 2025’s elections in New Jersey and Virginia failed to paper over the DNC’s challenges to recover from sweeping losses in 2024. The ongoing post-mortem saga — Martin pledged to release it, then buried it, then reversed again by ultimately releasing the unfinished report this week — is emblematic of the committee’s chaos, more than a dozen DNC members, donors and strategists said in interviews with NOTUS.

Martin hasn’t indicated that he’s considering leaving his post, and both those who are critical and those who are supportive say his departure is unlikely. But DNC members and Democrats outside the committee already see the botched autopsy as a new low for Martin, one that has some people considering for the first time what it would take to replace him.

There was at least one attempt to head off this embarrassment. Last December, a small group of top DNC officials tried to rewrite the autopsy to deliver an acceptable version for public consumption, two people directly familiar with the effort said. But the effort failed, they said, due to time constraints and lack of full access to the primary source material. Paul Rivera, the Democratic consultant who authored the report, refused to share interview transcripts or notes, despite requests to do so, according to a person familiar with the DNC’s process.

Instead, the DNC buried its report. A DNC official said late last year the committee decided not to publish it because Democrats had expressed concern about releasing the findings. But after reading it on Thursday, some DNC members said the unfinished report cast doubt on the official explanation.

“People feel gaslit,” said a second DNC member, who said other members now have even more questions than before its release. “You kept telling people it was coming, then when you didn’t release it, you didn’t even tell everyone the real reason why.”

In his statement on Thursday, Martin defended his decision to shelve the autopsy in December: “I meant what I said at the time — that I didn’t think dwelling on 2024 or looking backwards so late in the game helped us to win elections.”

The published autopsy contained a myriad of issues, not least the fact that a year and a half after the 2024 election, the report remained incomplete.

The report didn’t address some of the most fraught issues within the Democratic Party, including former President Joe Biden’s decision to run, despite his age; former Vice President Kamala Harris being nominated without a primary, which led detractors to liken the process to a coronation; and the impact of the war on Gaza with young voters. Perhaps most critically, it did not appear to land on a digestible explanation of what went wrong, omitting an executive summary.

A Democratic donor adviser said the DNC fundraising team was “very active” after the report was released, “not in a self-aware way.” They asked for follow-up meetings and whether donors “will give now.”

“For donors, it’s not dissimilar to Biden, when people started saying, ‘This isn’t going well, but what are we supposed to do?’” the donor adviser said, referring to the three-week period after Biden’s disastrous debate performance, before he ultimately dropped his reelection bid. “If this was meant to instill confidence, this did not do it. Donors are saying, ‘How do we get rid of him?’”

Martin still has backers inside the DNC. His defenders said those agitating for his removal are part of a small group of officials who didn’t support his election to lead the committee in the first place. Any effort to remove Martin is far short of majority support within the committee, they said.

“He has the confidence of state parties, which continue to control the vast majority of votes on the DNC,” Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, told NOTUS. Kleeb, a longtime Martin ally, added that she thought no chair since Howard Dean had been more effective than Martin at building party infrastructure and winning elections.

A third DNC member, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said they were disappointed with how Martin handled the autopsy report. But they said any effort to remove Martin before November’s election would be “horseshit,” given how disruptive they thought it would be.

Among DNC members frustrated with Martin’s leadership, there’s also a sense that without a clear replacement — and without serious outside pressure — he is likely to stay atop the committee. “Calls for Martin’s resignation won’t gain serious momentum until elected officials begin to weigh in and take this crisis in leadership seriously,” said a Democratic state party chair.

“When the RNC and MAGA INC. begin to rain cash in make-or-break seats later this year, they’ll have the most to lose and the most regret for not acting sooner,” the chair said.

A former DNC staffer said if Martin survived this latest controversy, “It’s a massive indictment of state chairs and DNC members that elected him, who would then rather have a club of ineptitude over a functioning party as we fight to save democracy.”

The calls to remove Martin aren’t as muted among Democrats outside the committee.

Rep. Mark Veasey of Texas told Semafor that he no longer backed Martin’s tenure on Thursday. David Hogg, a former DNC vice chair who clashed with Martin, who ultimately pushed him out, told NOTUS that “even the most basic levels of competence are being failed to be met here.” “Pod Save America” co-host Dan Pfeiffer wrote an entire blog post on why Martin “has to go.”

“He committed to putting out a report, and then he didn’t, and we lose trust based on that, and we need trust when they’re about to manage the debates and the primary calendar,” said Danielle Butterfield, president of the super PAC Priorities USA. “It’s going to be very hard to come back from this.”

Another Democratic super PAC leader said they had “gotten texts from congressional chiefs-of-staff asking, ‘Is there a downside to calling for him to resign?’ And I say, ‘no,’ but the problem is, no one wants the job.”

“But releasing the autopsy feels like the ultimate proof that this is a shit show, so it’s day one of what will probably grow in calling for him to resign,” the person continued. “I think more people will call for it.”

Other DNC members said they were waiting for potential 2028 presidential candidates to weigh in. Some pointed to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who relayed to Martin he wasn’t happy that the DNC hadn’t released the report, according to a person directly familiar with the conversation. NBC News first reported Shapiro’s frustration.

The 2028 candidates are Martin’s “real problem,” a fourth DNC member said. “No one is going to say today was a good day.”

Beyond the autopsy, Martin’s leadership is likely to face additional scrutiny in the coming weeks.

The Supreme Court is widely expected to soon deliver a ruling that would do away with coordinated expenditure limits between party committees and candidates, a decision that would, in effect, let committees like the DNC spend the money they raise directly on TV ads at the discounted rate once reserved for candidates.

The new dynamic is certain to intensify dissatisfaction with the committee’s fundraising, especially compared to the Republican National Committee. The RNC had more than $100 million more on hand than the DNC at the end of March, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, money Democratic strategists worry could blunt the party’s advantage during this year’s midterm election in an otherwise favorable political environment.

The DNC had a higher amount of debt ($18.3 million) than cash on hand ($13.4 million) at the end of March.

DNC members speculated that the earliest Martin could be forced from the chair position would be during the DNC’s full meeting in August. Elaine Kamarck, a DNC member and longtime expert on the committee’s rules, said she thought members could replace him with a vote if it came to that.

But she said she doubts a majority of the committee wants to move on to a new leader.

“I’m a supporter of the chair,” Kamarck said. “I think he has a lot of supporters. I think he has done a good job strengthening state parties and that’s his primary responsibility.”

“This autopsy thing is a distraction,” she said.