DNC Releases, Then Disowns, 2024 Election Autopsy

The Democratic National Committee released an incomplete autopsy report on the 2024 election on Thursday, after months of pressure from Democrats to do so.

In publishing it, DNC Chair Ken Martin disowned the report, calling it not “ready for primetime.” In a lengthy statement, Martin said when he received the report last year, “no source material was provided, fixing it would have meant starting over, from the beginning.”

“I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on the report that was produced,” Martin said. “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. For that, I sincerely apologize.”

The incomplete report the DNC released does not tackle some of the biggest fault lines still debated within the party: Joe Biden’s initial decision to run for reelection, Kamala Harris’ nomination without a serious primary process and the impact of the war in Gaza on younger voters. The report does not appear to land on an explanation for what went wrong, failing to include an executive summary, even though one was mentioned in the report.

In the “sources” section, a single paragraph, the report said it included data from 5,000 DNC members, voters and supporters. But no list of interviewees were provided to the DNC, nor any transcripts or notes of interviews were provided to the committee, despite multiple requests, according to a person familiar with the DNC and granted anonymity to describe a private process.

Martin faced enormous pressure within his party to publish the 2024 autopsy, after publicly pledging to do so after he was elected chair last year. The DNC indicated that it expected to release it after the 2025 elections, even briefing donors on some of its presumed contents. By late December, the DNC reversed course, saying it would not release the report after Democrats raised concerns about publicizing the findings, a DNC official said at the time.

But Martin’s decision to bury it only enraged Democrats both inside and outside the committee. DNC members called on Martin to release it, and they grumbled about his poor leadership throughout the process. The criticism comes as the DNC continues to struggle in its fundraising, falling far behind their Republican counterparts and taking out a line of credit to invest in the 2025 elections.

Paul Rivera, a Democratic consultant, led the post-mortem effort, along with the DNC’s Office of Strategy and Innovation. In his statement, Martin said he chose Rivera because he didn’t want the report “led by anybody directly tied to the 2024 cycle, either the campaign or the consultants involved.” While he didn’t attack Rivera directly, he eviscerated the results. On each page of the autopsy, the DNC added a disclaimer: “This document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC.”

In a call to DNC staff on Thursday, Martin said Rivera is no longer working with the DNC, according to the person familiar with the committee.

CNN first reported the release of the partial autopsy.

The document is incomplete. For example, it does not mention Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, a single time, nor does it analyze her choice of running mate. It incorrectly cites data — at times failing to provide any sourcing at all.

For example, in one section reviewing the party’s “state of technology and data,” the report appeared to lift passages from other sources without any citation.

The report said: “Knowledge about voters was stored separately from data about campaign interactions, because those databases were developed by different teams who had little interest in making their systems compatible.”

And in a 2012 MIT Technology Review article, authored by Sasha Issenberg: “As was typical in political information infrastructure, knowledge about people was stored separately from data about the campaign’s interactions with them, mostly because the databases built for those purposes had been developed by different consultants who had no interest in making their systems work together.”

While incomplete, the report delivers a bleak assessment of the Democratic Party’s standing among voters after the 2024 election. “The Party and our candidates have lost the confidence and trust of voters. In the face of misinformation and disinformation, our candidates have proven incapable of projecting strength, unity, and leadership, and voters have drifted away,” the report reads.

The author refused to finish the report when asked, the person familiar added.