The Democratic National Committee won’t release a review of its election loss in 2024, saying it would be a “distraction” from helping the party win going forward.
The party has been working on a so-called autopsy of 2024 since Kamala Harris lost the presidential election to Donald Trump.
Ken Martin, the DNC chair who previously said he would publicly release a review of the 2024 election, said in a statement that the review was complete and that the committee was “already putting our learnings into motion”.
“We’re winning again – even in places that haven’t gone blue in decades,” Martin said. “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.”
As part of the review, the committee interviewed people across all 50 states about issues with both the presidential and down-ballot races in 2024 and any previous structural challenges, a DNC official said. The results include lessons about organizing, communications, fundraising and spending, though the report found Democrats outspent Republicans at all levels, the official said.
The party was already implementing plans to address some of the issues raised, and releasing a retrospective report would take time and focus away from winning going forward, the official said.
The contents of the report have been the subject of speculation for months. The New York Times reported in July that the results of the post-election review were “expected to avoid the questions of whether former President Joseph R Biden Jr should have run for re-election in the first place, whether he should have exited the race earlier than he did and whether former vice-president Kamala Harris was the right choice to replace him, according to the people briefed on the process so far.”
RootsAction, a progressive grassroots group, released its autopsy of the 2024 election earlier this month, concluding that Harris focused more on courting moderates than motivating the Democratic base of working-class, young and progressive voters.
Xochitl Hinojosa, a former communications director for the DNC, called the decision not to release the report publicly the “right call”.
“The DNC knows how to implement lessons learned without creating a poorly timed distraction,” Hinojosa said. “Democrats don’t need to engage in a handwringing exercise about last year’s elections when we’re winning this year’s elections, and are on the path to crushing Republicans in the midterms.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
