Democrats’ midterm push clouded by infighting over party keeping 2024 autopsy under wraps

Democrats’ midterm push clouded by infighting over party keeping 2024 autopsy under wraps

Kamala Harris joins growing chorus of Democrats demanding DNC release its 2024 election autopsy report

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DNC Chair Ken Martin brags that Democrats are ‘winning up and down the ballot’

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin boasts of "win after win" at the ballot box, pointing to Democrats' recent special election victories.

Democrats keep winning at the ballot box as the party works to win back congressional majorities in this year's midterm elections.

But despite a slew of electoral victories and overperformances in the more than 15 months since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the party's image remains well underwater in public opinion polling and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) finds itself badly trailing the rival Republican National Committee in fundraising, a crucial gauge of a party's strength.

To make matters worse, the DNC is facing continued calls to release its internal autopsy of the party's sweeping setbacks in the 2024 election, when Democrats lost the presidency and Senate majority and fell short in winning back control of the House.

Among those calling on the DNC to make public their report on what went wrong for the Democrats in 2024 is former Vice President Kamala Harris, the party's presidential nominee two years ago.

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE FLIP FLOPS, PULLS PLUG ON ITS 2024 ELECTION ‘AUTOPSY'

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, center, speaks with patrons during a stop at Crave restaurant ahead of a South Carolina Democratic Party fundraiser on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Greenville, S.C (Meg Kinnard/AP Photo)

Harris, who is mulling making another White House bid in 2028, recently told donors she believes the DNC should make the autopsy public. The news was first reported by NBC News and confirmed by Fox News Digital.

A source with knowledge said that Harris had not discussed the autopsy with DNC Chair Ken Martin, and that the former vice president did not know in advance about Martin's decision in December to keep the 2024 election postmortem under wraps.

Martin ordered the report soon after he was elected DNC chair early last year.

Democratic Party officials interviewed over 300 Democrats from all 50 states for the report, which Martin promised would examine the party's mistakes in 2024 and offer a roadmap to victory going forward.

There was controversy surrounding the report as it was being compiled, after reports last summer said the autopsy would skip analyzing whether then-President Joe Biden should have run for re-election in 2024 and would pass on judging key decisions made by Harris and her team, after she replaced Biden as the party's nominee with just over three months to go until the 2024 election.

Throughout the process, Martin repeatedly pushed back on calling the report an "autopsy," since he noted that the Democratic Party wasn't dead. He instead labeled the report an "after-action review."

But in December, weeks after Democrats scored major victories in the 2025 off-year elections, the party announced it would not be releasing the report.

Martin, in a statement at the time, said releasing the report would be "a distraction" from the party's "core mission" to win back congressional majorities in the midterms.

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Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin addresses party members at the DNC summer meeting in Minneapolis, Minn., on Aug. 25, 2025. (Paul Steinhauser – Fox News)

In explaining his decision, Martin wrote, "We completed a comprehensive review of what happened in 2024 and are already putting our learnings into motion. And we're winning again — even in places that haven't gone blue in decades. In our conversations with stakeholders from across the Democratic ecosystem, we are aligned on what’s important, and that’s learning from the past and winning the future."

"Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission," he emphasized.

But the DNC chair's decision was criticized not only by Republicans but also by fellow Democrats.

"They are spiking an autopsy of the election that gave us Trump 2.0. If party leaders won't take the steps required to rebuild ourselves into a winning coalition, we will take it into our own hands," former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg warned in a social media post at the time.

Hogg, a gun-control crusader who was elected a DNC vice chair as Martin won election as chair, stepped down from his position last summer after upsetting party leaders for his efforts backing primary challenges against what he called "asleep at the wheel" older, longtime incumbents in safe, blue districts.

Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior advisor to then-President Barack Obama and a co-host of the popular progressive podcast "Pod Save America," also took to social media to criticize the move.

"This is a very bad decision that reeks of the caution and complacency that brought us to this moment," Pfeiffer wrote.

His podcast co-host and fellow Obama alum Jon Favreau called the DNC flip-flop "unreal" and "baffling."

"The DNC's actual position is that if the public knew more about what Democrats got wrong in the last election, it would hurt the party's chances in the next election," Favreau wrote on X. "How does this rebuild trust between the party insiders and grassroots activists and organizers?"

Martin last month made an appearance on "Pod Save America" to push back against the criticism.

DNC CHAIR GRILLED BY LIBERAL PODCAST HOST FOR NOT RELEASING 2024 POLITICAL AUTOPSY REPORT

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"We’ve been releasing that," Martin said when asked if the DNC would release a summary of the report. "The reality is we’re not hiding the ball on this. We have been sharing those things out. There’s no smoking gun here."

Martin noted that "we've been providing briefings," as he pointed to data from the report the DNC shared with Democratic stakeholders.

Harris isn't the only potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender calling on the DNC to make the full report public.

"Yeah, release the autopsy," Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said this past weekend in an interview on NBC’s "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "They should do that," the senator added as he pointed to the DNC.

But Booker, who ran unsuccessfully for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination won by Biden and who is mulling another run in 2028, said it's imperative his party doesn't dwell on the past.

Rotimi Adeoye, a former Democratic operative who is serving as a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, argued in a social media post that "the mistake the DNC made is they could’ve released the report earlier in the spring, whatever’s in it, you get two weeks of bad publicity, then Trump does something stupid and everyone forgets."

"Now it feels like something’s being hidden, which makes it way more salacious," he claimed.

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A person familiar with the DNC's strategy told Fox News Digital because of all the attention on the autopsy, "they are going to be forced to release something."

The person, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, said the ongoing storyline is a distraction for the DNC with the clock ticking towards the midterms, adding "it’s just not helping to be talking about this."

The DNC pointed to Martin's previous comments when contacted by Fox News Digital.

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast."

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