Can the DNC Move Past Its 2024 Autopsy Fiasco?

By David M. Drucker

Monday, June 01, 2026

 

Ignore the substance of the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy of the 2024 election. The DNC certainly is, agreeing with critics who dismiss the report as shoddy and incomplete despite taking more than a year to deliver.

 

At issue is party Chairman Ken Martin, his mismanagement of this crucial project, and how the lack of a competent after-action report on Kamala Harris’ loss to President Donald Trump is denying Democrats the benefits of what might have been learned to inform the 2028 campaign. Martin’s chief blunder: tasking the autopsy to a Democratic operative, longtime party hand Paul Rivera, who was ill-suited for the work. The embattled chairman offered an explanation for this critical mistake while conceding the report is worthless upon releasing it under withering pressure late last month.

 

“I didn’t want that process led by anybody directly tied to the 2024 cycle—either the campaign or the consultants involved—and I did not want to put my own thumb on the scale for what might be produced,” Martin, 52, wrote in a May 21 article for the DNC’s Substack publication, The Blue Print. “I don’t endorse what’s in this report, or what’s left out of it. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on it.” (In response to questions about the autopsy, the DNC referred The Dispatch to Martin’s Substack write-up.)

 

The chairman did not receive the 192-page autopsy from Rivera until around Christmastime—more than a year after the 2024 election.

 

Among the report’s fatal substantive deficiencies: The executive summary is missing; Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, isn’t mentioned once; and there is virtually zero analysis of any of the issues debated during the campaign—whether Israel’s war to eradicate Hamas terrorists in Gaza, inflation, border security, or President Joe Biden’s infirmities. Additionally, the autopsy is replete with factual errors, unverifiable claims, and assertions for which evidence might exist but was not provided—all highlighted by annotations inserted by the DNC prior to its release.

 

Martin compounded the problem by keeping the report under wraps for months—and obfuscating as to why—amid sharp questioning from the media and growing complaints from Democratic activists and insiders. For this particular error, Martin issued a mea culpa. “I didn’t want to create a distraction,” he said. “Ironically, in doing so, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. And for that, I sincerely apologize.”

 

The chairman’s contrition is not satisfying many frustrated Democrats, who were already grumbling over what they view as his unacceptably poor fundraising. The DNC had collected $189.2 million for the midterm cycle as of April 30 but had just $14.4 million in cash on hand, plus $17.5 million in debt per Federal Election Commission filings. The Republican National Committee hauled in $247 million during the same period and entered May with $124 million in the bank and zero debt.

 

Some Democrats, including activists, party insiders, elected officials, and media figures, are questioning whether Martin can remain in his post. Others are calling for him to resign.

 

Scott Ferson, a veteran Democratic operative in Boston, believes Martin mishandled the autopsy because he didn’t want to expose the problems plaguing the party that a proper 2024 after-action report might have uncovered. The chairman, Ferson argued in an interview with The Dispatch, preferred to focus on this year’s midterms and the 2028 election rather than rock the boat with the party establishment by digging into the missteps that greased Trump’s return to the White House.

 

“The party is run by the money, the elites, the insiders, the entrenched. A forensic investigation would have said: ‘I’ve figured it out. That’s the problem,’” said Ferson, who runs a communications firm and is author of How the Democrats Lost America: Making Sense of the 2024 Election and the Future of American Politics.

 

Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to President Barack Obama who co-founded Crooked Media and its flagship liberal podcast, Pod Save America, believes the DNC chairman should be replaced despite the close proximity to midterm elections in which, unlike 2024, the Democrats are on offense. “It’s hard to imagine anyone handling anything worse than Ken Martin handled the DNC autopsy. It was a disaster of his own making, and it’s sufficient evidence that he is not the right person to lead the DNC at this time,” he said in an X post.

 

Meanwhile, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is urging its grassroots supporters to pressure DNC members to oust Martin. “The DNC autopsy fiasco is bigger than one bad report,” PCCC Director of Strategic Campaigns Maria Langholz said in a statement.

 

Martin’s DNC defenders concede he fumbled the autopsy. But they put stock in his willingness to show contrition and believe his strengths outweigh this mistake—which they contend is not a fireable offense in any event. “We’re 160 days away from one of the most consequential elections of our lifetimes,” Cristóbal Alex, a DNC member based in Washington, D.C., said. “As Democrats, we have to be laser-focused on winning the midterms, and then off to the presidential.”

 

“Ken said that he didn’t want to release the report because it would create a distraction, and that, ironically, ended up being the case. For that he sincerely apologized, and that’s something you never hear from political leaders,” he added, echoing Martin’s explanation. “I fully support Ken. He knows how to win.”

 

Martin was chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party during the 2024 election cycle (Harris outpaced Trump by 4.2 percentage points in the perennially blue Gopher State). He assumed the DNC chairmanship in February 2025, winning a competitive, multi-candidate race for the national party’s top post.

 

At the time, Martin promised the DNC would commission and publicize an autopsy detailing Democratic failings in the most recent elections. Trump had decisively defeated Harris, the incumbent vice president, with increased support from racial minorities fueling a sweep of the swing states and delivering the first popular-vote victory for a Republican nominee in 20 years. Additionally, the GOP preserved its majority in the House of Representatives and flipped control of the Senate.

 

Fast-forward to deep into this spring. The autopsy still hadn’t been released.

 

That sparked months of complaints from party insiders who assumed the report was actionable and wanted to put its findings into practice to avoid another White House loss in 2028. The delay was additionally controversial because multiple Democratic groups had long since conducted and released their own post-2024 election analyses. By way of comparison, it took the RNC just four and a half months to produce and publicize an after-action report on Obama’s victory in 2012.

 

But as of last week, Martin’s job appeared safe, as several DNC members rallied around him, including state party chairs in Colorado, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. “As a leader, I could see why Chairman Martin made the decision he made not to release it,” Nebraska Democratic Party Vice Chairman Ron Kaminski told The Dispatch. “The folks that are making a big deal about this in my mind are folks that … never supported Chair Martin in the first place.”