Democrats: What the 2024 ‘autopsy’ didn’t say

Now we know what they were hiding, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. Back in January 2025, Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, promised that by “spring” the DNC would release an analysis of Kamala Harris’ defeat in the 2024 election. Spring came and went, and in December Martin announced he was shelving the “autopsy” because “to dwell on the past” would be a “distraction.” Two weeks ago, the text finally leaked, and Martin released the autopsy himself, pre-apologizing that it “does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards.” On that, at least, Martin told the truth. Missing whole sections and riddled with typos and fact errors, the report’s most striking feature is its “utter lack of substance.” Nowhere in 192 pages of platitudes and wonkery will you find the words “Israel” or “Gaza,” while inflation and immigration—likely the biggest factors in Donald Trump’s re-election—are mentioned only in passing. The report is even silent on the catastrophic error of letting Joe Biden run for a second term at 81, which left Harris—nominated without a primary after Biden imploded—only 107 days to campaign. Commissioned as a plan to win back the White House in 2028, all this “ridiculous” document tells us about the Democratic Party’s future is that “Martin should be replaced.”

For all its flaws, the DNC autopsy gets some big things right, said Rich Lowry in National Review. Candidate Harris really should have done more to distance herself from Biden, as the report maintains, and make an “affirmative case” for her own presidency. Instead, she focused on Trump’s “unfitness,” as if voters weren’t already acquainted with him, while letting Trump define her as an “out of touch” California lefty—most notably in that devastating “She’s for they/them” ad. Democrats lost because their cultural extremism turned off working-class voters in swing states, said Evan Barker in The Free Press. Perhaps Martin and the authors of this report didn’t want to anger the Democrats’ progressive base with the “ugly truth”: The party’s Biden-era embrace of far-left insanity on trans and gender issues, policing, immigration, and race “has tainted the entire Democratic brand.”

Actually, Democrats “don’t need an autopsy” to teach them that lesson, said Andrew Prokop in Vox. Since their disastrous defeat by Trump, there’s been “a vibe shift” in the party. Its candidates are displaying a “laser focus on affordability,” and “quietly backing away” from “peak woke” positions. With this effort to be “more solicitous of the median voter,” Democratic candidates—moderates and progressives alike—have already racked up a string of wins in state and special congressional elections. Renewing the party’s brand will take time, said Ed Kilgore in New York, and Democrats have time. Trump’s cratering popularity should win them the House—at least—in November. They can then start choosing a message, and a candidate, for 2028. Democrats were also in the wilderness in 1992 and 2008 — until Bill Clinton and Barack Obama emerged.

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Count on Democrats to screw this up again, said Ramesh Ponnuru in The Washington Post. They could offer a moderate immigration policy that includes strong border enforcement, but they’ll misinterpret their midterms success as proof they should run progressives who want to abolish ICE and offer other “boutique left-wing views.” The DNC autopsy could have been quite simple: Modern Democrats always “misread America.”