By TRH World Desk
A 192-page report six months in the making, months delayed by its own author’s patron, and released with a disclaimer from the man who commissioned it — the Democrats’ post-election reckoning has arrived in the most chaotic way possible.
New Delhi, May 21, 2026 — The Democratic National Committee on Thursday released its long-awaited internal autopsy of the 2024 presidential election. The release ended what had become an embarrassing public spectacle that threatened to overshadow the party’s preparations for the 2026 midterms. The DNC released a nearly 200-page draft of an internal autopsy of what went wrong in the 2024 campaign, ending months of speculation. What followed the release was arguably as revealing as the document itself.
The report places blame for Kamala Harris’s defeat partly on former US President Joe Biden’s political operation, arguing that it failed to position her for success in the race after he dropped out. “It also critiques the Harris campaign for failing to distance itself from Biden and for failing to mount an effective strategy to make a dent in Donald Trump’s rising approval ratings,” said The Philadelphia Inquirer in a report.
The findings on the Biden operation are striking in their specificity. The report states that the White House did not effectively support Harris over three and a half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch. “One detail stands out as particularly damning: before the 2022 midterms, the White House had directed the party to poll on how Jill Biden could help the president — but there had been no such polling on Harris,” added The Philadelphia Inquirer. In other words, the sitting vice president was a lower internal research priority than the first lady.
The document is not without political baggage of its own. The release, first reported by CNN, 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. Atop each page was a bright red disclaimer that the DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein. The executive summary page, tellingly, was left entirely blank, reported GV Wire.
The report’s author is Democratic consultant Paul Rivera. Martin entrusted a top priority to a friend who volunteered to work on it part-time. Rivera had not worked on a presidential campaign in more than two decades, according to Axios. After the publication of CNN’s story and the release of the autopsy, Martin told DNC staff that Rivera was no longer associated with the committee.
DNC Chair Ken Martin, who had commissioned the report as a centrepiece of his chairmanship campaign, spent Thursday simultaneously releasing it and publicly distancing himself from it. Martin released and repudiated the report in the same breath, saying it does not meet my standards. “Martin said he initially withheld the report because he didn’t want to create a distraction. Ironically, in doing so, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. And for that, I sincerely apologize,” Axios reported.
The 192-page report calls for a renewed focus on the voters of Middle America and the South, who have come to believe they are not included in the Democratic vision of a stronger and more dynamic America for everyone. “The report details problems that plagued the Democratic Party, including messaging that created tensions with key constituencies on the economy, late-arriving efforts to organize voters on the ground, and a lack of alignment between the party’s main super PAC and then-Vice President Harris’s campaign,” NBC News reported.
The document also describes sobering polling data showing that pro-Trump advertising criticising Harris for past comments about transgender individuals had been highly effective, with no answer offered by her campaign to counter it.
Perhaps the loudest silence in the report is what it omits entirely. Despite the contention within the party over then-President Biden’s support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza, the war does not get a single mention. The omission drew immediate condemnation from Arab American Democrats and progressive activists. RootsAction co-founder Jeff Cohen said in a statement: “This alleged autopsy is almost worthless. There’s no mention of the Biden/Harris administration’s Israel policy that abetted the Gaza massacre. That cost votes, and helped Trump win.”
The report avoids many of the topics that have divided the party since 2024: Biden‘s decision to run again, Harris taking over as the nominee without a nominating process, and Harris’s failure to do an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, which many analysts have regarded as a major mistake, CNN reported.
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