By Rich Lowry
Syndicated Columnist
An autopsy as malpractice
The Democrats couldn’t complete their term paper, but handed it in anyway because too many people were wondering what had become of it.
Under pressure, the DNC finally released its autopsy of the 2024 election, after rampant speculation about what it contained and why it hadn’t yet been made public. Did it include references to Gaza or didn’t it? Why or why not? What explosive revelations were being kept from us?
It turns out that the autopsy is a thoroughly unimpressive, unfinished document that, in the sheer incompetence in its drafting and handling, says more about the low state of the current Democratic Party than any of its analysis.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin maintains that he delayed so long because he didn’t want to create a distraction by releasing a poorly done report, which sounds like a typical Washington excuse for hiding something. Except it wasn’t. Once everyone saw the report, they realized Martin was right about the embarrassingly poor handiwork of his own outfit.
At the start, the autopsy contains a disclaimer that “the DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.”
Then, throughout the document, there are hostile annotations casting doubt on its claims. And the report doesn’t have a conclusion. The Democrats would have been better off going with ChatGPT.
That said, the report acknowledges that Democrats are out of touch and too dependent on the Republicans making poor candidate choices (something the GOP may be about to do again in its Texas Senate primary with the Trump-endorsed, scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton).
It notes how Trump’s they/them ad hitting Kamala Harris on trans issues was devastating and unanswerable.
It recognizes that Harris didn’t do enough to separate herself from Biden and make an affirmative case for herself, rather than relying on voters supposedly considering Trump unacceptable.
On the other hand, it fails to grapple with the issues of inflation and immigration (except to complain about Harris being given a role with some responsibility over the border). These were the two biggest substantive issues in the election, while the autopsy also whiffs on Biden’s age and his catastrophically poor judgment in trying to run for reelection. (It also doesn’t mention Gaza, bitterly disappointing the anti-Israel left.)
Yet, our expectations for such documents shouldn’t be very high. What was the report going to say? That Democrats disgraced themselves by pretending that Biden was fit for a second term, and only shifted course when he got exposed in the first debate, and then had no alternative but to turn to a charmless nonentity as a last-minute substitute?
The history of party retrospectives like this isn’t good. Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 by taking the recommendations of the GOP autopsy after its 2012 election defeat and often doing the opposite in substance and tone.
Democrats may be rudderless and increasingly extreme, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have a good election night this coming November. Usually, a party that has just lost the White House rises or falls in the midterms based on the incumbent president’s job approval rating, rather than its own political creativity or inherent appeal.
As for retaking the White House, that typically depends on nominating someone who is charismatic and fresh, who has an unexpected approach to politics, and who develops a new coalition — think Barack Obama in 2008, or Donald Trump in 2016.
None of this comes about by having a political strategist talk to a bunch of people about the immediate past election and write a long report about it. Needless to say, Democrats should be grateful that the stakes of their autopsy are so low — otherwise, they would have had to endeavor to actually finish it, and grapple with truths about the 2024 election conveniently passed over in the just-released document.
Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.
(c) 2026 by King Features Synd., Inc.