The DNC is courting both wealthy donors and struggling working class Americans who have different needs. The wealthy emphasize social liberalism because conservative fiscal politics is working for them. Not the case with struggling working class Americans. Good luck avoiding a fiscal reform platform again. A recipe for conservative victory – again.
Swartschenhimer on
I love all the petty footnotes in the document
stevenmoreso on
Heard this schmuck explain his reasoning on the pod save America podcast. And by explain, I mean completely side-step and obfuscate.
He sounded exactly like he looks in that thumbnail.
kioma47 on
The answer is Heritage Foundation and Fox News.
Next question.
kirapb on
lol, they basically redacted the executive summary, literally the most important part for easily communicating how Democratic failed in what should have been an layup of an election. Cowards.
HiddenInLight on
Id personally settle for representation that focuses on serving their constituents instead of their donors. A government by the people, for the people.
SundayJeffrey on
I mean, he was right. It’s a pretty shitty report.
itshifive on
Just skimmed to the last pages and theyre talking about media spend… YOUR ACTIONS ARE THE ISSUE.
Smearwashere on
Why are there edits and comments and shit on this release? I coulda wrote a better report than this wtf, why didn’t we pay someone to do a good job of this!?
> CONCLUSION
> This section was not provided by the author.
WTF!?!
DogsRcutiePies on
I get the feeling no matter what is contained within the report that the DNC and Dems will keep going with business as usual.
weaver787 on
Oh my god, if you read the report it is just littered with inaccuracies and unsourced data. Some of it is literally just BLANK. WTF
This thing is just absolute garbage, that’s why he didn’t release it. DNC Chair should have submitted this alongside his resignation because holy crap what a disaster.
CrimsonHeretic on
That clown needs to resign
Smearwashere on
> CONCLUSION
> This section was not provided by the author.
Oh yeah baby we are so ready for 2028.
Rabidjester on
So much of the democratic pundit/consultant class needs to fuck all the way off. Just browsing this thing gives me brain freeze.
Training_Medicine_49 on
I did a word search in the document could not find the word Israel in there not once.
Big-Dig-Pig on
This report is garbage. It’s either literally incomplete or weirdly redacted, it’s filled with pedantic annotations, and it says nothing of substance. What a half-assed embarrassment. They clearly just didn’t take the autopsy seriously and that’s why they didn’t want to release it. My takeaway is that consultants are overpaid.
IdentityCrisis1316 on
Jesus this report isn’t even good enough to be a passable grade school paper. How much did they pay for something that screams “I did it the night before lol”.
CaptainAwesome06 on
>Conclusion: This section was not provided by the author.
Seriously?!
naththegrath10 on
It’s a completely useless report. It’s almost like they didn’t want to get to the bottom of why we lost in 2024. And they didn’t want to release the fact that they didn’t really care to know
SantorumsGayMasseuse on
Some consultant somewhere fuckin’ *fleeced* whoever paid for this, oh my god this is hilariously awful.
nonsensestuff on
>When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over.”
What?? Did they use ChatGPT to write the report?
cellulargenocide on
No evidence of the White House not effectively supporting Harris over Biden’s term? How about everyone’s eyeballs?
Mr_Incognito on
The document is basically saying, “Keep doing what we’re already doing, *but louder*”.
A quick look through the paper, and it doesnt seem to seriously address any of the issues people have been pointing out about plaguing the Democratic party:
* Talent Pipeline Failure
* Leadership Disconnect from Reality
* “My Turn” Over Merit
* Donor Capture / Elite Influence
* “Republican Lite” Governance
* Marginalization of Progressives
I can see why they were hiding this – it’s an embarrassing waste of time and money to just pat themselves on the back with no real feedback.
BruteSentiment on
It may be a horribly written autopsy, but as a voter, it’s hard to disagree on these disputed assumptions:
> The annotations flag factual errors, including incorrect election results. They also question assumptions and push back on claims the annotators say were written in without evidence. For example, the report’s finding that “the national campaign did not effectively drive Trump’s negatives, and the White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three and half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch.
When the first rumbles of replacing Biden on the ticket came up, those were my first thoughts about Harris….i could barely remember more than a handful of times that she has been given specific actions that were her own,
Even Trump’s presidency has tried to do more with Vance than Biden’s administration did with Harris.
E_lluminate on
No wonder they didn’t want to release this thing. What a mess.
hunter15991 on
> Overall, what 2024 showed us is that our tech infrastructure finally began to work as it was intended.
1 paragraph later:
> In March 2025, the New York Times reported on problems with
NGP VAN, the database that most Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations have relied on for years. Problems with the database were so severe during the 2024 election cycle that leaders in the party staged an “extraordinary intervention[iii]” to keep the system, and the election, up and running.
Call me crazy but I don’t think the key software foundation of every Dem. voter contact operation from Harris for President down to Sally Smith for Dog Catcher coming perilously close to collapsing is tech infrastructure working as intended! It didn’t have these issues in past cycles!
HarryBallsanya420 on
No mention of Gaza is downplaying by omission. Or they didn’t even bother collecting voter data on that.
Second this was written by a part time consultant is this even the actual report? They didn’t even bother doing a full blown analysis? They just had some part time guy do it all? Hilarious.
SovietPropagandist on
I knew a lot of university and grad students who didn’t vote or voted third party because Joe Biden restarted student loan payments after Trump halted them during the pandemic. Telling one of your core demographics to eat financial shit is not a great way to get them to vote for your candidate.
HotSpicedChai on
I think its easy to see why the report wasn’t published just a few paragraphs in.
>Unfortunate reductions in support and training for our state parties, consequential shifts in voter registration, a loss of partisan organizing capacity, and a persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters has provided the other major party with opportunities for advancement at the expense of Democratic growth, evolution, and ability to find common ground with seemingly disparate groups of voters from coast to coast, and the heartland Democrats tend to ignore.Historically, Democrats have held the advantage in each of these areas. The Democratic Party has always tried to be seen as the party of the people, the party of workers, fair play and civil discourse. The party’s connections with working Americans and their families were forged through decades of organizing and engagement, the development of a vibrant and inclusive party infrastructure, and a relatable agenda which helped us connect in homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods across the country.
The Democrats have lost their way by hyper focusing on a fringe minority of the party, and corporations. When I was first voting it was an easier choice. The party for working class families? Democrat. The party for big corporations and profits over people? Republican. Now its the Democrats that are hyper aligned in corporate politics. Donald Trump just has to SAY he’s gonna do something for the people, even though he’ll do the opposite and put profit before people, it STILL gets him support. The Dem’s should try pretending they care about all of us, and not just performative political fringe topics. Try something like “The economy” or “immigration”. You know, maybe a big platform item that a lot of people care about?
buppiejc on
I’m a slow reader. It’s gonna take me a bit to finish reading it, but I did a CTRL-f. What is NOT in the autopsy
– no mention of AIPAC
– no mention of Israel
– no mention of Palestine
– no mention of Liz Cheney even thought they were so proud to have Kamala Harris trot her around the country with her
– they’re still saying most voters are in the middle.
Mmmkay.
shapu on
I posted the CNN version of this earlier, but this one is gaining more traction so I want to piggyback on yours to share the key points that both the CNN article and this one have raised:
Key takeaways from the article:
* Ken Martin hired a Paul Rivera, a friend and someone who was independent of both the DNC and the Harris campaign, to write the autopsy, but Rivera was not often available, didn’t interview key stakeholders, and was frequently accused of having pre-set views on topics
* Rivera didn’t interview Kamala Harris staff until September 2025, 10 months after the general election. Neither Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or Tim Walz was ever interviewed.
* Rivera was often unclear on methodology used to reach his conclusions and demonstrated lack of sophistication vis-a-vis statistical analyses.
* Rivera did not provide interview notes, a list of interviewees, or any data he claimed to use for his conclusions.
* Rivera used AI liberally, again displaying a lack of sophistication
* **Rivera’s work product was so bad Martin tried to shove it under the rug,** which only made the conspiracy theories about it worse. Because it was never published (until now), different stakeholder groups could and often did simply make up commentary about what was in the autopsy, what they said to Rivera (or that they spoke with Rivera at all), and what his conclusions were.
* Martin’s damage control is so bad it’s legitimately hurting the party, both financially and from a voter trust perspective.
I am NOT linking to my submission, don’t visit it, keep comments here, so on and so forth
Meathand on
Ken Martin sucks so much ass. I can’t believe how he blew such a soft ball interview with a very left leaning podcast (podcast saves America). It was at that moment I knew democrats hate their base.
GoggleDMara9756 on
I wish he was honest and just said the report sucked, or just released it.
It had everyone from every corner of the party thinking it secretly confirmed their world view when really it was just vapid and empty
Birdhawk on
>The report also stated that a “persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters has provided the other major party with opportunities for advancement at the expense of Democratic growth, evolution, and ability to find common ground with seemingly disparate groups of voters from coast to coast, and the heartland Democrats tend to ignore.”
Oh my god they did it! They actually acknowledged it! Not even being sarcastic when I say this genuinely gives me hope. Granted who knows what they’ll actually do about it. I’m just glad to see that they’re starting to understand the real cause here.
38 Comments
So many scars from so many self-inflicted wounds.
we just want heathcare and to not be shot in the face by federal agents
It’s about fucking time!
[Link to the document from the article](https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/May-20-2026.pdf)
The DNC is courting both wealthy donors and struggling working class Americans who have different needs. The wealthy emphasize social liberalism because conservative fiscal politics is working for them. Not the case with struggling working class Americans. Good luck avoiding a fiscal reform platform again. A recipe for conservative victory – again.
I love all the petty footnotes in the document
Heard this schmuck explain his reasoning on the pod save America podcast. And by explain, I mean completely side-step and obfuscate.
He sounded exactly like he looks in that thumbnail.
The answer is Heritage Foundation and Fox News.
Next question.
lol, they basically redacted the executive summary, literally the most important part for easily communicating how Democratic failed in what should have been an layup of an election. Cowards.
Id personally settle for representation that focuses on serving their constituents instead of their donors. A government by the people, for the people.
I mean, he was right. It’s a pretty shitty report.
Just skimmed to the last pages and theyre talking about media spend… YOUR ACTIONS ARE THE ISSUE.
Why are there edits and comments and shit on this release? I coulda wrote a better report than this wtf, why didn’t we pay someone to do a good job of this!?
> CONCLUSION
> This section was not provided by the author.
WTF!?!
I get the feeling no matter what is contained within the report that the DNC and Dems will keep going with business as usual.
Oh my god, if you read the report it is just littered with inaccuracies and unsourced data. Some of it is literally just BLANK. WTF
This thing is just absolute garbage, that’s why he didn’t release it. DNC Chair should have submitted this alongside his resignation because holy crap what a disaster.
That clown needs to resign
> CONCLUSION
> This section was not provided by the author.
Oh yeah baby we are so ready for 2028.
So much of the democratic pundit/consultant class needs to fuck all the way off. Just browsing this thing gives me brain freeze.
I did a word search in the document could not find the word Israel in there not once.
This report is garbage. It’s either literally incomplete or weirdly redacted, it’s filled with pedantic annotations, and it says nothing of substance. What a half-assed embarrassment. They clearly just didn’t take the autopsy seriously and that’s why they didn’t want to release it. My takeaway is that consultants are overpaid.
Jesus this report isn’t even good enough to be a passable grade school paper. How much did they pay for something that screams “I did it the night before lol”.
>Conclusion: This section was not provided by the author.
Seriously?!
It’s a completely useless report. It’s almost like they didn’t want to get to the bottom of why we lost in 2024. And they didn’t want to release the fact that they didn’t really care to know
Some consultant somewhere fuckin’ *fleeced* whoever paid for this, oh my god this is hilariously awful.
>When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over.”
What?? Did they use ChatGPT to write the report?
No evidence of the White House not effectively supporting Harris over Biden’s term? How about everyone’s eyeballs?
The document is basically saying, “Keep doing what we’re already doing, *but louder*”.
A quick look through the paper, and it doesnt seem to seriously address any of the issues people have been pointing out about plaguing the Democratic party:
* Talent Pipeline Failure
* Leadership Disconnect from Reality
* “My Turn” Over Merit
* Donor Capture / Elite Influence
* “Republican Lite” Governance
* Marginalization of Progressives
I can see why they were hiding this – it’s an embarrassing waste of time and money to just pat themselves on the back with no real feedback.
It may be a horribly written autopsy, but as a voter, it’s hard to disagree on these disputed assumptions:
> The annotations flag factual errors, including incorrect election results. They also question assumptions and push back on claims the annotators say were written in without evidence. For example, the report’s finding that “the national campaign did not effectively drive Trump’s negatives, and the White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three and half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch.
When the first rumbles of replacing Biden on the ticket came up, those were my first thoughts about Harris….i could barely remember more than a handful of times that she has been given specific actions that were her own,
Even Trump’s presidency has tried to do more with Vance than Biden’s administration did with Harris.
No wonder they didn’t want to release this thing. What a mess.
> Overall, what 2024 showed us is that our tech infrastructure finally began to work as it was intended.
1 paragraph later:
> In March 2025, the New York Times reported on problems with
NGP VAN, the database that most Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations have relied on for years. Problems with the database were so severe during the 2024 election cycle that leaders in the party staged an “extraordinary intervention[iii]” to keep the system, and the election, up and running.
Call me crazy but I don’t think the key software foundation of every Dem. voter contact operation from Harris for President down to Sally Smith for Dog Catcher coming perilously close to collapsing is tech infrastructure working as intended! It didn’t have these issues in past cycles!
No mention of Gaza is downplaying by omission. Or they didn’t even bother collecting voter data on that.
Second this was written by a part time consultant is this even the actual report? They didn’t even bother doing a full blown analysis? They just had some part time guy do it all? Hilarious.
I knew a lot of university and grad students who didn’t vote or voted third party because Joe Biden restarted student loan payments after Trump halted them during the pandemic. Telling one of your core demographics to eat financial shit is not a great way to get them to vote for your candidate.
I think its easy to see why the report wasn’t published just a few paragraphs in.
>Unfortunate reductions in support and training for our state parties, consequential shifts in voter registration, a loss of partisan organizing capacity, and a persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters has provided the other major party with opportunities for advancement at the expense of Democratic growth, evolution, and ability to find common ground with seemingly disparate groups of voters from coast to coast, and the heartland Democrats tend to ignore.Historically, Democrats have held the advantage in each of these areas. The Democratic Party has always tried to be seen as the party of the people, the party of workers, fair play and civil discourse. The party’s connections with working Americans and their families were forged through decades of organizing and engagement, the development of a vibrant and inclusive party infrastructure, and a relatable agenda which helped us connect in homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods across the country.
The Democrats have lost their way by hyper focusing on a fringe minority of the party, and corporations. When I was first voting it was an easier choice. The party for working class families? Democrat. The party for big corporations and profits over people? Republican. Now its the Democrats that are hyper aligned in corporate politics. Donald Trump just has to SAY he’s gonna do something for the people, even though he’ll do the opposite and put profit before people, it STILL gets him support. The Dem’s should try pretending they care about all of us, and not just performative political fringe topics. Try something like “The economy” or “immigration”. You know, maybe a big platform item that a lot of people care about?
I’m a slow reader. It’s gonna take me a bit to finish reading it, but I did a CTRL-f. What is NOT in the autopsy
– no mention of AIPAC
– no mention of Israel
– no mention of Palestine
– no mention of Liz Cheney even thought they were so proud to have Kamala Harris trot her around the country with her
– they’re still saying most voters are in the middle.
Mmmkay.
I posted the CNN version of this earlier, but this one is gaining more traction so I want to piggyback on yours to share the key points that both the CNN article and this one have raised:
Key takeaways from the article:
* Ken Martin hired a Paul Rivera, a friend and someone who was independent of both the DNC and the Harris campaign, to write the autopsy, but Rivera was not often available, didn’t interview key stakeholders, and was frequently accused of having pre-set views on topics
* Rivera didn’t interview Kamala Harris staff until September 2025, 10 months after the general election. Neither Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or Tim Walz was ever interviewed.
* Rivera was often unclear on methodology used to reach his conclusions and demonstrated lack of sophistication vis-a-vis statistical analyses.
* Rivera did not provide interview notes, a list of interviewees, or any data he claimed to use for his conclusions.
* Rivera used AI liberally, again displaying a lack of sophistication
* **Rivera’s work product was so bad Martin tried to shove it under the rug,** which only made the conspiracy theories about it worse. Because it was never published (until now), different stakeholder groups could and often did simply make up commentary about what was in the autopsy, what they said to Rivera (or that they spoke with Rivera at all), and what his conclusions were.
* Martin’s damage control is so bad it’s legitimately hurting the party, both financially and from a voter trust perspective.
I am NOT linking to my submission, don’t visit it, keep comments here, so on and so forth
Ken Martin sucks so much ass. I can’t believe how he blew such a soft ball interview with a very left leaning podcast (podcast saves America). It was at that moment I knew democrats hate their base.
I wish he was honest and just said the report sucked, or just released it.
It had everyone from every corner of the party thinking it secretly confirmed their world view when really it was just vapid and empty
>The report also stated that a “persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters has provided the other major party with opportunities for advancement at the expense of Democratic growth, evolution, and ability to find common ground with seemingly disparate groups of voters from coast to coast, and the heartland Democrats tend to ignore.”
Oh my god they did it! They actually acknowledged it! Not even being sarcastic when I say this genuinely gives me hope. Granted who knows what they’ll actually do about it. I’m just glad to see that they’re starting to understand the real cause here.