Rarely has a document been at once as mysterious and anticlimactic as the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy of what went wrong in the 2024 election, which, after much drama and angst, was finally published on Thursday.
The committee’s chair, Ken Martin, promised a full audit of party operations when he was running for his seat, and again when he won it. Last July, officials said it would be out in the fall. Fall came and went, and in December, Martin said it wouldn’t be released at all. By hiding it, Martin made the report an object of suspicion and fascination. Some thought he was protecting Kamala Harris ahead of 2028. Many progressives were convinced that the D.N.C. quashed the autopsy because it would show Harris was done in by Gaza. Rob Flaherty, who’d been deputy director of both the Harris and Joe Biden campaigns, speculated that it didn’t even exist: “The members of the ‘autopsy team’ were in over their heads and struggled to put the thing together.”
Flaherty was partly right. On Thursday, in response to reporting by CNN, Martin released an incomplete version of the report, a project he’d assigned, on a part-time, volunteer basis, to the Democratic consultant Paul Rivera. The document, it’s now clear, was kept under wraps not because it was impolitic, but because it’s a disaster.
What’s most striking is its utter lack of substance. The words “Israel” and “Gaza” don’t appear once in its 192 pages. It offers little insight into why the Democratic Party lost large numbers of Black and Latino men, or its failure to speak to disconnected, irregular voters. Much of it is a string of platitudes, like this: “It’s imperative that Democrats meet the moment — by identifying and preparing the leaders and organizers who will deliver positive change for America.” I wondered if it was written by A.I., though A.I. probably would’ve done a better job.
At one point, the autopsy notes that in North Carolina, Josh Stein, the successful Democratic candidate for governor, significantly outperformed Harris. The report acknowledges that Stein had the benefit of a ridiculous opponent, the former lieutenant governor and porn message-board habitué Mark Robinson (“a self-described Nazi most voters would never support”). Still, based on Stein’s victory, the audit asserts, with startling complacency, “The problem wasn’t Democratic policy or party brand” but “Harris as a candidate.”
Elsewhere, the autopsy claims that Harris’s campaign didn’t sufficiently incorporate polling data into its messaging, as if her operation suffered from a surfeit of authenticity and spontaneity. It’s the opposite of the conclusion reached by Flaherty, who published his own much more trenchant version of an autopsy this month in The Bulwark. “We tend to poll-test our way into running a lot of mealy-mouthed ads about prescription drugs or whatever,” he wrote of Democrats, while Republicans are better at driving viral narratives.
Rivera’s report makes a few fair points. It’s correct, for example, that the right has far outdone progressives in building permanent infrastructure like Turning Point, the organization for young conservatives, while Democrats and their allies “make massive investments in media towards the end of an election cycle and then go dark.” But even where the autopsy is right, it’s often so airy as to be almost meaningless. Democrats, it tells us, need to do more year-round organizing, invest more in digital advertising, and speak about “kitchen table” concerns rather than “identity politics.” “The losses in the states are the key trend Democrats need to reverse,” it says. Rivera might have added that Democrats need to win more votes.
In a statement, Martin acknowledged that the autopsy was a failure. When he received it, he wrote, he knew “it wasn’t ready for prime time — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over.” What’s most bizarre and damning, however, is not the shoddiness of the work itself, but the way Martin let his initial screw-up fester until it looked like a coverup.
Martin might have defused the situation by telling the truth — that the draft he received was a mess — and commissioning a new one. Instead, he let it become a crisis. At a time when the D.N.C., under his leadership, appears to be nearly insolvent, multiple Democratic donors are reportedly withholding contributions because of Martin’s handling of the report. “I talk to donors constantly who refuse to give to the D.N.C.,” said Amanda Litman, head of Run for Something, which recruits young progressives to seek office. “They cannot trust Ken Martin. They cannot trust the institution is doing its job well.” A project that was supposed to restore trust to the party instead undermined it.
Now that the autopsy is out there, it does tell us one important thing about the Democratic Party’s future: Martin should be replaced. I’ve spoken to Democrats, progressives and moderates alike, say who say he’s insular and thin-skinned, a man who won his seat by promising perks to voting members rather than articulating a compelling vision. “Ken Martin is in way over his head and doesn’t know how to do politics at the national level,” said Phil Gardner, a founder of the centrist Blue Dog Action. The growing displeasure with Martin’s leadership isn’t ideological. It’s operational.
Democrats know they have a problem. As The Associated Press reported this month, operatives have already approached Litman to gauge her interest in replacing Martin. She said no — she likes the job she has — but still believes he needs to go. “We can’t tolerate mediocrity,” she told me. Every step of this autopsy process shows Democrats doing exactly that.
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