The Democratic National Committee on Thursday released an unfinished draft of its autopsy of the party’s 2024 election loss, a 192-page document riddled with errors and questionable assertions that dodges questions about key decisions by party leaders.

The committee released the report to CNN, with DNC Chair Ken Martin saying he shared it to quiet a growing maelstrom about why the party had chosen not to do so. The decision to release the report, which Martin notes is highly flawed, was aimed more at quelling controversy and protecting under-fire committee leadership and less at providing any sort of meaningful guidance for the future.

It doesn’t appear to be working. Many professional Democrats reacted to the autopsy’s unveiling with embarrassment.

“Why can’t we run a tight ship?” said Evan Roth Smith, a partner at the Democratic polling firm Slingshot Strategies. “The substance of the autopsy is almost irrelevant. But we couldn’t even produce a standard-fare document around our own election loss.”

“It’s a failure in every possible direction,” he said.

A handful of prominent Democrats called for Martin’s resignation after the report’s release, including Dan Pfeiffer, a top aide to former President Barack Obama; Run For Something co-founder Amanda Litman; and former DNC vice chair David Hogg. Elected officials, however, were notably silent.

“Ken Martin is not up to the job, and his continued presence is going to make the DNC woefully ineffective heading into the midterms and then the critical 2028 primaries, where the DNC plays a major role,” Pfeiffer wrote in his newsletter. “He should step down for the good of the party, and if he won’t, the DNC should fire him.”

The document draws several broad conclusions: President Joe Biden’s White House failed to adequately promote Vice President Kamala Harris politically; Democrats are too closely associated with “identity politics” in a way that is damaging to the party’s brand; and Democrats should spend money earlier in election cycles, a highly contested idea.

But it does not dwell on other key policy and political decisions, including not bothering to second-guess Biden’s decision to run for reelection; not extensively evaluating how his support for Israel’s war in Gaza may have hurt the party’s brand with Muslim and progressive voters; and not examining Harris’ decision to select Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

Throughout the document, DNC staffers included notations indicating they don’t know what evidence the author of the report, Democratic strategist Paul Rivera, used to reach his conclusions. The report also contains a large number of spelling and factual errors, some of which DNC staff pointed out. Huge numbers of key leaders, including top Biden and Harris staffers, were never interviewed.

“When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime. Not even close. And because no source material was provided, fixing it would have meant starting over, from the beginning — every conversation, every interview, every data set,” Martin said in a statement, which seemingly contradicts earlier assertions he did not release the report because it would be a “distraction” from the party’s electoral successes since President Donald Trump returned to office.

But as grumbling about the unfinished autopsy grew, especially following a contentious interview Martin did on the “Pod Save America” podcast, the committee leader decided he needed to release the report for transparency’s sake.

“I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards,” Martin said. “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 haphazard nature of the document was apparently matched by an equally confusing process. A source familiar with the process said Rivera never provided a full list of people he interviewed or transcripts of interviews to the committee; there was seemingly no consistent methodology behind the interviews; and the author did not finish the report when asked.

Despite this, CNN reported Thursday morning that Rivera is still working on a different project for Martin. Martin told DNC staff on a conference call later in the day, however, that Rivera no longer works for the committee.

The report is odd in other ways: While there’s no executive summary provided, it provides lengthy summaries of every election since 2008 and a history of campaign finance law. It also dwells extensively on the 2024 North Carolina governor’s race ― a success for Democrats and Gov. Josh Stein, but also a contest where the party faced an extremely flawed candidate.

Despite the report’s clear flaws, moderate groups within the party argued the segments of the report that do exist largely back their worldview, with some going as far as to suggest it was held back to avoid angering progressives. The moderate group Welcome PAC suggested the autopsy “was too moderate to handle.”

“For Democrats who want to win, this report should be case closed,” said Jon Cowan, the president of the center-left group Third Way.

A progressive group, the Institute for Middle East Understanding, had similarly claimed the report was held back because Rivera had concluded Biden’s unquestioning support for Israel had hurt the ticket. But the draft report never mentions Gaza.

Martin spent much of the afternoon trying to rally allies to his defense. Democratic state party chairs were asked to prepare statements defending him if reporters asked, according to a source who saw an email making the request. He also held a conference call with Democratic National Committee members, but did not take questions.

“This was a major mistake. I own it,” Martin said. “It’s time for us to move forward at the DNC, and I hope that you’ll move forward with me.”

But little help seemed to be coming. Jane Kleeb, the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and Martin’s successor as the leader of the Association of State Democratic Committees, was among the few who offered a statement of support.

“The DNC 2024 Report is out. A good move by Chair Martin. Democrats don’t win by avoiding hard truths — we win by facing them and getting to work,” Kleeb said. “State parties are already doing exactly that, using the DNC Playbook to organize, support candidates, and build the infrastructure that wins elections.”

Especially important for Martin’s future may be how donors react to the autopsy’s release. Martin, a former state party chair in Minnesota who has struggled to raise money since winning the chairmanship over former Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler last year, with the DNC now having about $3 million more in debt than it has in cash on hand.

One adviser to major Democratic donors, requesting anonymity to speak frankly, said Martin’s decision to blame Rivera for the report’s failure is unlikely to help the Minnesotan’s standing.

“Martin himself is saying he messed up one of the biggest hires he had to make,” the adviser said. “Why would that give anyone confidence in his ability to lead?”

Martin said he picked Rivera, a veteran strategist who worked in President Bill Clinton’s White House and in New York state politics, because of the strategist’s lack of ties to any of the major campaigns or entities involved in the 2024 campaign.

The full report is below:

DNC 2024 Autopsy  by  Alanna Vagianos

Alanna Vagianos contributed reporting.

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