DNC’s Martin Apologizes, Releases 2024 Autopsy Report He Shelved in December

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on May 21 released its long-buried 2024 election autopsy, with DNC Chair Ken Martin apologizing for shelving the document late last year and distancing himself from its contents.

“I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards,” Martin said in a statement published alongside the release.

“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. But transparency is paramount.”

The 192-page report, titled “Build to Win. Build to Last,” was released as Martin “received it—in its entirety, unedited and unabridged – with annotations for claims that couldn’t be verified,” he said.

Several major sections of the document are missing or incomplete. The executive summary, conclusion, and appendices each carry the notation, “This section was not provided by the author.”

A “notes for the reader page” is marked, “This section was not completed.” The introduction and national overview of the “What Happened (Electoral Review)” section are also marked as not provided. The sources page states: “Sources, interview materials, and other evidence not provided.”

A disclaimer appears at the top of nearly every page: “This document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC. The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.”

Inline annotations throughout state-by-state breakdowns flag passages with “no evidence provided” for many claims, numbers that “appear inaccurate based on public data,” and assertions that “contradict public reporting.”

The report, as released, contains no mention of Gaza, Israel, or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC); topics that have repeatedly surfaced in intraparty disputes over the autopsy.

Axios reported in April that the review found the Biden administration’s Gaza policy cost Vice President Kamala Harris significant support, particularly among young and progressive voters. The Epoch Times has not been able to verify what the original review contained on that subject.

What the report does say is blunt. Democrats lost support among the working class and stopped showing up in much of the country.

“The Harris campaign appears to have relied on Trump being unacceptable rather than building an affirmative case for Harris,” the report stated. “Base voters needed reasons to vote FOR Harris as well as against Trump. Without an effective contrast with a difficult (and unaffordable) status quo, the obvious contrast with Trump was not a sufficient motivator, especially since there was not sufficient negative messaging about how horrible Trump was (and still is) for and to most Americans.”

The party’s media strategy, the report argues, funds its own opposition—claiming Democrats pay billions to advertise on television networks and digital platforms owned by Republicans or right-wing investors. “Republicans own and Democrats rent,” it says.

The report points to two Democratic governors who won in 2024—Josh Stein in North Carolina and Bob Ferguson in Washington—as proof of what works. Both ran on housing costs, grocery prices, and public safety. Stein won North Carolina even as Harris lost the state to Trump. The report calls their wins “blueprints” for future candidates.

The report also says the party’s rural strategy is “mathematically indefensible.”

Anti-Trump messaging, it says, has hit its limits and must be replaced with concrete plans rather than “vibes.” Male voters—including male voters of color—cannot be assumed to fall in line on identity politics and need direct engagement on the economy.

Voters who skip cycles are not turnout problems but swing voters who need persuasion year-round. And demographics aren’t destiny: Latino voters shifted Republican nationally in 2024 but moved Democratic in places like North Carolina with the right candidate.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said in a CNN interview Thursday after the report was released that Democrats understand what happened in 2024, but the DNC may not.

“They can write whatever document they want, but Democrats know why we lost,” Moskowitz told the network. “Whether the DNC has reckoned with that is a different question.”

He said the report’s failure to address “the two or three largest problems in the last election” suggests “some of the folks [at the DNC] were in denial.”

Moskowitz cited President Joe Biden’s debate performance, the lack of a competitive process when Harris replaced him, and Democrats’ failure to focus on affordability.

Martin pledged in February 2025 to publicly release the autopsy after being elected DNC chair. In December, he reversed course, saying publication would distract from the party’s electoral mission.

The decision drew public criticism from Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas). Progressive group RootsAction organized billboards outside the DNC’s April spring meeting in New Orleans, disrupted the general session, and ran an email pressure campaign that flooded DNC officers with thousands of messages.

RootsAction national director Norman Solomon said at the time the DNC had spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars at least” on the review’s 50-state interview process.

Pressure continued into late April. On the Pod Save America podcast, host Jon Favreau—a former Obama White House official—told Martin that “a lot of the big donors still have not come off the sidelines” and that “there’s a trust issue based partly on the autopsy.”

Martin disagreed at the time, telling Favreau, “I’m just not seeing that, Jon.”

In the May 21 statement, Martin acknowledged that shelving the report “ended up creating an even bigger distraction” than releasing it would have. “For that, I sincerely apologize,” he wrote.

He said the report was not ready when he received it late last year, and that no source material was provided, which he said would have required restarting the review process.

Rather than endorsing the report’s findings, Martin laid out his own conclusions from the 2024 cycle.

Among them: Democrats “can’t just be anti-Trump” and need an affirmative agenda centered on affordability; the party must campaign year-round; ads “are not a substitute” for direct voter engagement; voters previously treated as “mobilization” targets should be treated as “persuasion” targets; the party must reinvest in a 50-state strategy and partisan voter registration; and “the Democratic brand is in trouble and needs repair.”

Martin said several of those insights are reflected in the DNC’s 2026 playbook, a separate document the committee released in March.

That playbook acknowledged the party’s organizing approach “is not fit for the moment” and disclosed that Democrats lost 2.1 million registered voters between 2020 and 2024 while Republicans gained 2.4 million.

Martin also said he has put in place a “reform task force to ban ‘dark money'” in the Democratic presidential primary nominating process.

At the New Orleans spring meeting, the DNC’s resolutions committee voted down a separate resolution that would have named AIPAC as a source of outside spending in Democratic primaries.