Left pressures DNC to release buried autopsy report on 2024 election loss

The Democratic Party’s left flank is ratcheting up pressure on the Democratic National Committee to follow through on its promise to release its post-2024 election autopsy, flooding top party officials with emails and accusing leadership of trying to bury politically uncomfortable findings.

Months after DNC leaders said they would keep the report private, concerned it could become a distraction ahead of the 2026 midterms, the backlash has been bubbling inside and outside the party.

RootsAction — which helped organize protest activity at last week’s DNC meeting in New Orleans — has launched a petition demanding the report’s release. The group says DNC Chair Ken Martin and other top party officials have received more than 9,000 emails from nearly 2,000 people urging them to make the full document public.

“It has been said that those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it,” said India Walton, a RootsAction senior strategist and former Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo. “We who are prudent would like to know what mistakes were made that thrust us into this nightmare we are living.”

“Now is not a time for saving face,” she said. “Releasing the autopsy will help us understand what voters really want heading into midterms and the next presidential election. That’s the least we deserve.”

Asked for a response, a DNC spokesperson pointed to a December statement from Mr. Martin.

“We completed a comprehensive review of what happened in 2024 and are already putting our learnings into motion,” Mr. Martin said at the time. “And we’re winning again — even in places that haven’t gone blue in decades.”

He said at the time, “In our conversations with stakeholders from across the Democratic ecosystem, we are aligned on what’s important, and that’s learning from the past and winning the future. Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”

Mr. Martin directed the party to conduct a post-election review after winning the chairmanship last year, vowing at the time to release the findings publicly and casting it as essential to learning from the party’s mistakes.

He went further, invoking the party’s unreleased 2016 election autopsy as a cautionary tale. In that election, President Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the shock of many Democrats.

“There was a post-election review done many years ago, right after the ’16 election, right? And that was never released,” Mr. Martin said in February 2025. “The DNC spent a lot of time and money on it, and it wasn’t even released to the DNC members. So what happened with that, right? Was there any utility in doing that?”

“Of course it will be released,” he said at the time, referring to the 2024 review. “It will be released to our members, and we all have to learn from that.”

The probe looked into why Vice President Kamala Harris fell short against Mr. Trump in all seven swing states, and what got in the way of Democrats flipping the House. The review included hundreds of interviews with individuals from all 50 states, zeroing in on the presidential and down-ballot races.

Mr. Martin pulled back from his promise to release the report following a series of Democratic victories in off-year elections, including high-profile wins in the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey.

RootsAction this month parked a truck outside the New Orleans meeting venue with a digital billboard reading: “DNC Members: Listen to Democratic Voters — RELEASE THE AUTOPSY.”

Inside the meeting, a few attendees yelled at Mr. Martin to release the report, asking, “What are you hiding?” and demanding that Democrats “stop funding Israel.”

RootsAction also released its own 2024 post-mortem report, which blamed Mr. Trump’s victory and the party’s disappointing showing partly on President Biden’s “stubborn refusal to step aside until very late in the process,” robbing activists of a full primary and sowing confusion that knee-capped the party’s chances.

The RootsAction report also found that young voters stayed home in part because of Mr. Biden’s “stalwart support for Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government’s genocidal onslaught against civilians in Gaza” after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, and Ms. Harris’ refusal to break with that posture.

The DNC’s own unreleased report apparently reached a similar conclusion on Gaza, Axios reported in February, finding that the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict cost Ms. Harris significant support — a finding that critics say makes the case for full public disclosure even stronger.