“When I was elected DNC chair, I commissioned an after action review of the 2024 election that I wanted to be honest and transparent, and with actionable and specific takeaways for the future of the Democratic Party. 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. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on the report that was produced.”
“After last November’s massive Democratic wins, I didn’t want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize. For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”
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If folks don’t have time to read the whole 192-page report, CNN has a summary with some highlights. It’s dismal. The DNC admits that the party is ineffective and adrift, with nothing to offer voters other than “At least we aren’t Trump.” There is no clear plan to revamp the party and become relevant again. So the DNC is admitting what everyone already knew, after they are doing nothing about it.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/dnc-autopsy-takeaways-vis
nothing to offer voters other than “At least we aren’t Trump.”
I have Democratic friends who think that this should be good enough and are pretty passionate about that. I try to tell them that it doesn’t animate most voters, but they don’t hear me. From talking to them, I get the impression that they view their party as some force of nature that just decrees who the candidate will be, and they have no power over it. I can see why they feel that way, but I don’t understand why they think that’s acceptable. Or I guess that they don’t think it’s acceptable, but they don’t think there’s anything that they can do about it. It’s learned helplessness.
A passionate democrat? I’ve genuinely not met one of those in the last decade. People who prefer the status quo to *gestures broadly* are pretty common, though.
I think there’s plenty of passion. Just look at the No Kings protests! The problem is that there aren’t any goals beyond “stop the Republicans”.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
TL:DR The Democratic Party needed to be told: “Actually try to get votes.”
CNN sprinkled in a bunch of little comments all throughout the report that seemed designed to excuse the DNC’s poor performance.
The report seems to keep to generalities instead of calling out specific mistakes the Harris campaign made. It seems to leave it up to the readers imagination on how to “…connect with voters on issues they say matter most including the economy, disaster relief, and addressing housing affordability.” (pg 22).
Let’s consider the commentary… Water is wet. I know it’s wet and so do you. I don’t need to provide evidence for something that is obvious to everyone.
They definitely should have taken it all the way and said that lacking substance that resonates with workers and middle class Americans, the campaign had no hope.
I’d hope it says that somewhere in the report but honestly I don’t feel like wasting the time to read such a document produced by a group of people that don’t represent my interests.
