The Democratic National Committee finally released a report last week that attempted to explain its disastrous showing in 2024, yet it doesn’t take a forensic analysis to see what went wrong.
Democrats nominated Joe Biden, who was suffering from severe cognitive decline and advanced physical ailments.
The panic set in after his first and only debate with then-candidate Donald Trump, where he rambled incoherently about health care policy before saying, “We finally beat Medicare.”
It was all downhill from there.
The once-friendly media outlets that propped up Biden for years quickly turned on him, and liberal politicians who were his allies started looking for an off-ramp.
After hitting full panic mode, the party decided to pass the baton to then-Vice President Kamala Harris. This was supposed to be a second chance, but in the end, it only hurt the party further.
CNN obtained and published a copy of the DNC report, known as the 2024 autopsy, written by Democrat strategist Paul Rivera.
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“The DNC withheld the report until presented with CNN’s reporting about much of its contents,” the article read. “The copy published by CNN includes annotations in red that the DNC added to its version of Rivera’s report.”
The New York Post also covered the autopsy and said that Biden’s age and cognitive decline were never even mentioned.
“The draft, begrudgingly released by the DNC on Thursday, made no mention of Biden’s advanced age or evidence of his cognitive decline; Harris’ pick of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a running mate; Democrats’ turn against Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack; or four-decade high inflation during the 46th president’s 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.”
The election report did, however, slam Biden’s team for not conducting deeper polling on Harris and for not giving her more opportunities to shine.
“The national campaign did not effectively drive Trump’s negatives, and the White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three and a half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch,” it stated.
The autopsy also said Harris’ status as “border czar” was “poorly framed by Republicans” and was not her formal title.
But it wasn’t the framing of Harris’ title that lost her the election.
It was the fact that she stood by in silence while Biden and other top officials allowed the U.S. southern border to become overrun.
These policies led to spikes in crime, drugs, fraud, and human trafficking.
Harris also failed to express concern about Biden’s age despite various public falls, mental gaffes, and instances where he was completely incoherent.
Each time Harris tried to express thoughts of her own, she appeared unprepared, unoriginal, untested, and would cackle awkwardly as if she were intoxicated.
This isn’t exactly the hallmark of a winning presidential candidate.
Instead of admitting that Harris’ liberal California roots and lack of leadership skills were a turnoff to middle class swing state voters, the report tried blaming Trump attack ads, data, social media, and everything else in between.
Harris spent over $1 billion in only 107 days. The DNC should’ve focused on where all the money went. If Democrats want to look inward, they could have started there, but instead they ignored this glaring controversy.
The one thing the autopsy got right was how Democrats relied on vilifying the GOP instead of offering tangible alternatives.
This strategy resulted in candidates who were “incapable of projecting strength, unity, and leadership.”
DNC Chairman Ken Martin was facing intense pressure to release the report, but the draft was missing several sections, including data and interviews.
A source familiar with the matter told the New York Post that committee officials have been asking Rivera to release the data, including transcripts and notes from interviews.
A second source from the DNC said Rivera refused to finish the report in a timely fashion.
Martin issued a statement about this disaster after he learned that CNN was planning to publicly release the draft.
“I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards,” he said. “I don’t endorse what’s in this report, or what’s left out of it. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on it.”
“But transparency is paramount,” Martin continued. “So, today I am releasing the report as I received it — in its entirety, unedited and unabridged — with annotations for claims that couldn’t be verified.”
It doesn’t take a deep dive to know what went wrong here.
In addition to terrible candidate choices, Democrats took radical stances that scared away key parts of the electorate.
Their immigration platform might as well have been “amnesty for all,” inflation was out of control, DEI was dictating who would serve in the most powerful positions in government, and parental rights were being trampled.
You can also throw in the horrendous Afghanistan withdrawal, the autopen scandal, and the constant weaponization of the Justice Department.
All things considered, it’s a shock that Democrats performed as well as they did.
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