The Democratic National Committee on Thursday released a nearly 200-page draft of an internal autopsy of what went wrong in the 2024 campaign, ending months of speculation that had created an embarrassing public spectacle for the party as it seeks to regain control of Congress.
The draft report places blame for former Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat partly on former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s political operation, arguing that it did not position her for success in the race after Mr. Biden dropped out. It also critiques the Harris campaign for failing to distance itself from Mr. Biden, and for not producing an effective strategy to make a dent in Donald J. Trump’s rising approval ratings.
The release was an extraordinary turn of events for the party, which all but trashed its own report as incomplete and inaccurate, releasing the document only after months of mounting headaches from keeping it secret. The episode drew unwanted attention to the committee’s internal struggles at a time when it should be focused squarely on the midterms and preparing for the looming 2028 cycle.
Democrats spent the day contending with what most agreed was a shoddy assessment of the 2024 cycle, stepping on a news cycle when Republicans in Congress were breaking with President Trump over a proposed $1.8 billion fund to benefit those who claim they were targeted by the federal government.
The document itself was widely mocked. Atop each page was a bright red disclaimer that the D.N.C. “was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein.” A page with the title “Executive Summary” was blank except for a note in red reading: “This section was not provided by author.”
Particular facts included in the version that the committee released were highlighted in yellow and annotated as either unverified and inaccurate. There was no list of who was interviewed, no transcriptions and no notes, which made determining the veracity of the draft all but impossible, said a person familiar with the process.
The party first provided the annotated copy to CNN and then released the document itself.
Despite its disorganization and empty sections, including those devoted to conclusions, the document includes a number of revelations, such as the fact that before the 2022 midterms the Biden team had directed the party to poll on how Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady, could help the president, and what issues and messages to emphasize. No similar polling was undertaken on Ms. Harris.
It also describes sobering polling data that showed how pro-Trump advertising criticizing Ms. Harris for past comments defending transgender rights had been highly effective, with no answer offered by her campaign to counter it or change the subject.
For months, Ken Martin, the party’s embattled chairman, had resisted calls to release the report because he said he did not wish it to be a distraction from efforts to win seats in the midterm elections. But in recent weeks, the discourse about the autopsy itself — combined with the party’s pallid financial state — ballooned into a sideshow that threatened to upend the national committee’s electoral priorities and prompted public and private calls for Mr. Martin to leave his post.
On a call with committee members Thursday afternoon, Mr. Martin said that the release of the draft report would help end the long-simmering saga, and he acknowledged his role in it.
“I apologize,” he said. “Being a leader at every level means you own every single mistake — those of your creation and those not of your creation. This was a major mistake. I own it, and now it is time for us to move forward at the D.N.C.”
Many Democrats were alarmed at the poor financial state of the party. On Wednesday, the D.N.C.’s latest financial report showed it had $3 million more in debts than cash on hand. The Republican National Committee, in contrast, had $123.9 million on hand and no debts.
Some called on Mr. Martin to resign on Thursday, including David Hogg, a former committee vice chairman who clashed with Mr. Martin last year before he was pushed out, and Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to Barack Obama and the host of an influential podcast listened to by many Democratic activists, “Pod Save America.”
Mr. Martin’s allies rallied to his defense and urged the party to move on, with party officials circulating talking points for committee members to use in his defense.
The D.N.C. plays a relatively marginal role in midterm elections, but will begin overseeing the presidential nominating process in 2027, including primary debates, and then serve as a key player in 2028.
Mr. Martin had entrusted a longtime ally, Paul Rivera, to oversee the autopsy, but Mr. Rivera’s final product “wasn’t ready for prime time. Not even close,” Mr. Martin wrote in a Substack post on Thursday.
Mr. Rivera declined to comment.
Many party leaders already felt limited confidence in Mr. Martin’s ability to steer the party through what is expected to be a crowded 2028 presidential primary campaign. Thursday’s report shook them anew, several said. They spoke anonymously to discuss private deliberations.
Top Democrats were nervous about the autopsy even before the draft report’s release.
Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania recently spoke with Mr. Martin. In that conversation, which was first reported by NBC News, Mr. Shapiro conveyed his unhappiness with the lack of transparency around the release of the report and how the controversy was being handled, according to an official familiar with the conversation who requested anonymity to describe a private conversation.
The draft report blames both the Biden and Harris campaigns for failing to successfully drive a negative view of Mr. Trump, writing that Democrats chose not to “engage in negative advertising at the scale required.”
“It was essential to prosecute a more effective case as to why Trump should have been disqualified from ever again taking office,” the report says. “The grounds were there, but the messaging did not make the case.”
For the most part, however, the report’s conclusions are limited, often veering into political clichés and hard-to-follow explanations.
“Democrats must organize everywhere to win anywhere through Majority Party Strategy focused on everywhere, cohesively, strategically, and decisively,” concludes one section.
The report notes the success of an ad run by the Trump campaign attacking Ms. Harris for past statements in support of transgender rights. The ad was “very effective” and “the campaign was boxed,” the report states, because the spot drove an economic attack that was effectively unanswerable barring a change of position on the issue by Ms. Harris. In the aftermath of the 2024 election, the ad — which used the tagline, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” — became emblematic of Democratic failures.
In several places, the report urges Democrats to eschew “identity politics” in favor of economic issues and cost-of-living concerns, praising the party’s candidates in battleground states including North Carolina and Arizona who won Senate seats in 2024 with such a strategy.
The report makes no mention of Israel or Gaza, an issue that has fractured the party and prompted some liberal voters to boycott Mr. Biden during the primary campaign.
Mr. Martin’s handling of the episode, meanwhile — promising a report, saying he wouldn’t release it and then putting out a draft version with undermining annotations — has raised new questions about the leadership of the party.
“When you’re in a hole you have to stop digging,” said Devin Remiker, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “Now that Ken Martin has put down the shovel, he has to dig out of the hole and climb out. There are a lot of folks that have to have trust rebuilt with Ken and the D.N.C.”
Mr. Martin seemed to acknowledge the imperative to restore faith among grass-roots supporters and major donors alike.
“Now we need to repair trust,” he wrote in the Substack. “I hope this is a start.”
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
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