{"id":239545,"date":"2026-05-21T18:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239545\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T18:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:07:10","slug":"dnc-autopsy-of-2024-defeat-says-biden-loyalists-neglected-kamala-harris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239545\/","title":{"rendered":"DNC ‘autopsy’ of 2024 defeat says Biden loyalists neglected Kamala Harris"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 A slipshod, error-riddled draft \u201cautopsy\u201d of Donald Trump\u2019s crushing 2024 election victory\u00a0commissioned by the\u00a0Democratic National Committee<\/a>\u00a0largely blamed allies\u00a0of former President Joe Biden<\/a>\u00a0for failing to properly support\u00a0former Vice President Kamala\u00a0Harris<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 but also knocked the party apparatus as relying on \u201cnegative partisanship\u201d to win races.<\/p>\n

The draft, begrudgingly\u00a0released by the DNC on Thursday,\u00a0made no mention of Biden\u2019s advanced age or evidence of his cognitive decline; Harris\u2019 pick of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a running mate; Democrats\u2019 turn against Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack; or four-decade high inflation during the 46th president\u2019s term as reasons for Trump becoming the first Republican nominee in 20 years to win the popular vote en route to an Electoral College blowout.<\/p>\n

The report, drafted by former Bill Clinton strategist\u00a0Paul Rivera,\u00a0did make sure to knock\u00a0Team Biden for not conducting advanced polling on\u00a0Harris<\/a>\u00a0prior to the incumbent abandoning his re-election bid that July and failing to push back effectively on the narrative that the veep was an ineffective \u201cborder czar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allies of former President Joe Biden failed to give former Vice President Kamala\u00a0Harris\u00a0the needed support before her 107-day sprint to Election Day 2024, according to reports. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s live coverage of President Trump and national politics for the latest news and analysis<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe national campaign did not effectively drive Trump\u2019s 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,\u201d the report read, while arguing that Harris\u2019 immigration portfolio had been \u201cpoorly framed by Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt [\u2018Border czar\u2019] was not the official title, but it was the one that the media propagated, and the White House failed to contradict or correct,\u201d the report added.<\/p>\n

The only mention of reservations about Biden\u2019s candidacy for a second term included a reference to the White House asking the DNC ahead of the 2022 midterms to poll \u201chow Dr. [Jill] Biden could support her husband as president \u2026\u00a0No similar research was conducted to support the Vice President \u2014 to identify the issues she should talk about, the ways in which she should talk about them, the audiences with which she could perhaps resonate and support the President\u2019s agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

The autopsy did grapple with fallout from the most successful Trump campaign ad,\u00a0a spot focused on transgender issues whose tagline declared: \u201cKamala is for they\/them. President Trump is for you.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three and half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch,\u201d according to a draft of the DNC\u2019s \u201cautopsy\u201d of Donald Trump\u2019s 2024 victory. Ron Sachs \u2013 CNP for NY Post<\/p>\n

Pollsters \u201call recognized the attack as very effective, and felt the campaign was boxed \u2014 the ad was a video of her saying what she said, and it was framed as an attack on her economic priorities,\u201d the report stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Vice President would not change her position \u2014 and she did not \u2014 then there was nothing which would have worked as a response,\u201d it added. \u201cThe pollsters generally concurred with the opinions shared by campaign leadership \u2014 given the stakes and timing, the focus needed to be on attacking Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the autopsy warned the party had relied too much on demonizing Republicans, resulting in fielding candidates \u201cincapable of projecting strength, unity, and leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cVoters have drifted away.\u00a0Indeed, many of our critical Democratic wins can be attributed to negative partisanship \u2013 where Republicans have nominated deeply flawed candidates, and we have been able to convince some Republicans and most Independents to support Democrats in those contests.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another striking section, the autopsy concluded: \u201cThe GOP\u2019s victory in 2024 largely came down to its ability to learn more from President [Barack] Obama\u2019s victory [in 2008]\u00a0than Democrats did.<\/p>\n

Former Vice President Harris makes remarks accepting her party\u2019s nomination on day 4 of the 2024 DNC at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on Thursday, August 22, 2024. Ron Sachs \u2013 CNP for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThe GOP\u2019s campaign was powered by data, amplified by social media, and enabled by ardent supporters at every level,\u201d it noted, adding:\u00a0\u201c[W]e failed to meet these voters in the ecosystems where they spend the majority of their time and where narratives are built.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the autopsy cautioned against splurging Democratic campaign funding \u201con legacy and social media platforms owned by oligarchs\u201d in future election cycles \u2014 claiming that their party can only \u201crent\u201d the systems that the GOP appears to \u201cown.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Harris campaign spent $2.28 billion and still failed to get the vice president elected.\u00a0Throughout the 2024 cycle, the Democratic Party also outspent Republicans in Senate and House contests.<\/p>\n

The DNC and\u00a0Chairman Ken Martin<\/a>\u00a0had come under intense pressure to publicly release the report, with even Harris urging its disclosure.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0the draft was missing several\u00a0sections and critical information, such as a list of the supposed\u00a012,000 interviewees \u2014 which did not include Biden, Harris, Walz or top White House advisers such as\u00a0Mike Donilon, Anita Dunn, Steve Ricchetti\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and data citations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DNC officials had repeatedly requested that data from Rivera, including transcriptions and\u00a0notes of interviews,\u00a0a source\u00a0familiar\u00a0with the matter told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A second source inside the DNC noted that the Clinton alum refused to finish the report in a timely manner.<\/p>\n

The draft was also annotated to highlight several factual errors, including Democrats\u2019 winning margin in the 2024 North Carolina gubernatorial race and a misspelling of the name of former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.<\/p>\n

Another passage seemed to suggest that 2022 Republican Georgia Senate hopeful Herschel Walker would offer \u201clittle more than rubber-stamping the president\u2019s agenda\u201d \u2014 despite Biden\u00a0being in office at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement Thursday, Martin said the party opted to release the autopsy after learning that CNN planned to run an in-depth piece on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won\u2019t meet your standards,\u201d the DNC chairman said. \u201cI don\u2019t endorse what\u2019s in this report, or what\u2019s left out of it. I could not in good faith put the DNC\u2019s stamp of approval on it.<\/p>\n

The DNC and Chairman Ken Martin had come under intense pressure to publicly release the report, with even Harris urging its disclosure. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cBut transparency is paramount. So, today I am releasing the report as I received it \u2013 in its entirety, unedited and unabridged \u2013 with annotations for claims that couldn\u2019t be verified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s handling of the autopsy report, as well as the DNC\u2019s financial and management struggles, has fueled backlash against his leadership of the party apparatus.<\/p>\n

Rivera\u00a0included a grim rundown\u00a0of Democrats\u2019 standing, describing their slippage among working-class voters and panning their media strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the high point of the 2008 Obama landslide, when he received nearly 10 million more votes than John McCain, the Democratic Party has vacillated between stagnation and retrogression,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

The podium is revealed prior to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, at the United Center on Thursday, August 15, 2024. Ron Sachs \u2013 CNP for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the sixteen tumultuous years since that historic election, Democrats have lost ground at every level of government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the issue, the report argued, is that Democrats \u201cfailed to capitalize on the economic disaster of the Bush presidency by cementing a relationship with working Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivera called on Democrats to get better organized at the state and local level and to work on making inroads in Middle America and the South, touting Sen. Elissa Slotkin\u2019s (D-Mich.) \u201closing better\u201d strategy of trying to reduce the GOP\u2019s edge in rural areas.<\/p>\n

The autopsy also pushed for the DNC to \u201c[i]nvest in partisan voter registration \u2014 where permissible and possible\u201d going forward to reduce Republicans\u2019 gains in recent years in critical states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 A slipshod, error-riddled draft \u201cautopsy\u201d of Donald Trump\u2019s crushing 2024 election victory\u00a0commissioned by the\u00a0Democratic National Committee\u00a0largely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11704,2132,874,10811,9,11,10,87,58],"class_list":["post-239545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-2024-presidential-election","tag-democrats","tag-joe-biden","tag-kamala-harris","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}