It has been a year and a half since the second female Democratic nominee for president lost to what her party views as an existential threat. Since then, President Donald Trump’s defeat of former Vice President Kamala Harris has been dissected at length. After much criticism and mounting public pressure, the Democratic National Committee finally released the long-awaited 2024 election autopsy. Both the delay and the report make the incompetence even more glaring.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin was supposed to release it not long after taking over in February 2025. The most recent delay was due to the proximity of the midterm elections on Nov. 3, 2026. However, Martin requested the report more than a year ago. Then, in November 2025, Martin decided not to release it. As Intelligencer reported, “Martin announced that he would not release it after all, arguing — rather unconvincingly — that it would not be productive to dwell on the past.”
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In a post on X following the report’s release, Martin attempted to deflect blame. Not only does he try to explain why he delayed the release twice, but that it “does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards.”
It says much about Democrats that they didn’t want to reveal what they know about why they lost. It says even more that the DNC chairman admits everyone will be disappointed by the incomplete product. Leadership is publicly distancing itself from it. The report reached conclusions that highlight the party’s inability to connect with regular Americans. And while they try to tiptoe around it, it seems they’ve privately accepted that Harris was not a great choice.
But they had no other options at such a late hour. Former President Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline wasn’t acknowledged until it was too late for the party to recover. Among Democrats, there remains a widespread refusal to accept that Harris herself was a problem. In the eyes of too many of her defenders, she was simply dealt a bad hand. The DNC draft does this very thing: pins the blame on Biden and his team. If Democrats can point to them as the real issues, then Harris’s reputation can be saved. And it makes room for her to run again.
In a recent interview with Intelligencer, Harris’s deputy campaign manager, Rob Flaherty, said the following: “I think that not distancing ourselves from Biden was probably a mistake in the long run. But again, it’s not clear-cut to me that it would have solved any problems. Because the association of the vice president with the unpopular president was baked in. Now, do I think the answer on The View was a good answer? No. The vice president would tell you it wasn’t a good answer. She said so in her book. The point I’m making is just that it’s not obvious to me that if we did that it would’ve worked.”
Harris only found herself on the ballot opposite Trump because of her association with Biden. The 46th president chose her for obvious reasons. Harris’s race and gender are what the ticket lacked.
Democrats still fail to grasp that Harris’s leftism made Trump preferable in comparison. Not every American who voted for Trump even liked him. Many simply couldn’t stomach a Harris administration. Her continued defense of extremist positions has only reinforced the wisdom of the decision in their minds.
It seems Democrats will still be unable or unwilling to face the truth of 2024, no matter how much time passes. They are weighed down by a mix of explanations and placement of blame. In response to a second Trump administration, many have grown more extreme.
The release of the 2024 autopsy was meant to provide clarity. The Democratic Party botched that with repeated delays and an unfinished review. Democrats are clearly uncomfortable with both accountability and consensus. What Americans see is worse: a party that is out of touch, internally divided, and increasingly directionless.