The Democratic National Committee on Thursday released an unfinished draft version of its autopsy of the party’s 2024 election loss, a 192-page document that dodges questions about key decisions by party leaders.
The committee released the report to CNN, with under-fire DNC Chair Ken Martin saying he did so in order to quiet a growing maelstrom about why the party had chosen not to do so. Throughout the document, DNC staffers included notations indicating they don’t know what evidence the author of the report, Democratic strategist Paul Rivera, used to reach his conclusions. The report also contains a large number of spelling and factual errors, some of which DNC staff pointed out.
The document draws a number of broad conclusions: President Joe Biden’s White House failed to adequately promote Vice President Kamala Harris politically; Democrats are too closely associated with “identity politics” in a way that is damaging to the party’s brand; and Democrats should spend money earlier in election cycles, a highly contested idea. But it does not dwell on other key policy and political decisions, including not bothering to second-guess President Joe Biden’s decision to run again and not extensively evaluating how his support for Israel’s war in Gaza may have hurt the party’s brand with Muslim and progressive voters.
