Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin’s decision to keep a postmortem of the party’s 2024 election losses confidential drew public pushback from Democratic elected officials, party-aligned strategists, and activists, who said the report should be released.
Martin said on Dec. 18 that the DNC had completed its review but would not publish it, arguing that its disclosure would distract from the party’s goal of winning upcoming elections.
“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,” Martin said in a statement provided to media outlets. “Here’s our North Star: Does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”
Details of the report were not disclosed and the DNC did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Epoch Times on the report and reaction to it.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the chamber’s chief deputy whip, called for the report to be released.
“I believe the DNC should release the report because 1) that’s what they said they were going to do 2) this is going to be a thing 3) if there’s good analysis we should see it,” he wrote on X.
In another post, responding to a comment on his initial post from a person saying to move on from last year, Schatz added: “I hated last year too. But I would like not to repeat it. If you find it personally unproductive to focus on past mistakes that’s fair enough. But any organization that fails that spectacularly has to figure out what went wrong and hash it out.”
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) told CNN he had not discussed the decision with DNC leadership, but he questioned why the party chose not to release the review.
Democrats can still be positioned for strong election cycles in 2026 and 2028, he said, arguing that publishing an analysis of what went wrong and what could be improved would not necessarily be harmful. Castro added he wants to look more closely at the situation to understand why the report is being kept private.
“I’m curious why they decided not to release it. … I don’t think that it hurts necessarily to release an analysis of what you think went wrong,” he said.
Other prominent voices in Democratic politics argued that withholding the report undercut trust with Democratic voters and activists.
Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama and co-host of “Pod Save America,” wrote on X that the DNC’s stance suggested “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,” and asked: “How does this rebuild trust between the party insiders and grassroots activists and organizers?”
Jon Lovett, also a former Obama speechwriter and co-host on the podcast, criticized the decision as “patronizing” and questioned why engaged Democrats “cannot handle the information you’ve gathered.”
He said “sitting on a report you said we needed and pledged to release” was hard to justify. Lovett also argued the DNC has “a convening role” and that the report “should be an important part” of broader discussions about lessons learned.
David Hogg, a March for Our Lives co-founder who briefly served as DNC vice chair before being ousted, said on X that the party was “spiking an autopsy of the election that gave us Trump 2.0.” He said he believed “an autopsy is an important part” of helping guide changes after 2024.
Meanwhile, Nina Turner, a former national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign, wrote that the “autopsy really isn’t needed.” Arguing that the reasons for the loss were already clear, she said refusing to release the information was “a glaring issue.”
Lis Smith, a longtime adviser to former Transportation Secretary and Democratic Candidate for President Pete Buttigieg, posted: “I suspect the reasons why this isn’t being released are precisely the reasons why it should be released.”
Aldgra Fredly contributed to this report.
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