A number of sub-plots undergird the drama that erupted over Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin's release of an incomplete autopsy of the 2024 election. First, I will note that I do not envy the dilemma in which Martin found himself. Martin had promised to deliver an in-depth examination of what went wrong in 2024 and the lessons the party could learn from these mistakes. He commissioned the study but did not receive a draft until the end of 2025. And what he received was a disaster — woefully incomplete, poorly sourced, and a mish-mash of information and data without direction, conclusions, or actionable recommendations.
Because Democrats had already recorded a string of victories in 2025 and were gearing up for critical 2026 midterm congressional elections, Martin decided against completing or releasing the study. At that point, it was a sound judgement. It would not have served any useful purpose to order its completion, with a release occurring amid the 2026 election season, diverting attention from helping Democrats take control of Congress. With the decision against release, two distinct currents of thought emerged. One was ideological, masking itself as principled, asking, 'What are you hiding?' while claiming to know the answer. The other was practical: 'We know why we lost and now we are winning elections, so why bother raking over old coals?'
I confess to being in the latter camp. I had done a number of in-depth press interviews on the 2024 election, conducted my own polling and interviews, and written extensively on why Democrats lost. As so many others had as well, I felt that an autopsy, or rather autopsies, had been done. What we knew was clear: Biden should have stepped down earlier, giving Democrats time to regroup and possibly have a mini-primary; and the political-consultant class running the Harris campaign were out of touch with the electorate, risk-averse and unimaginative, and more interested in using the campaign for lucrative advertising contracts than in direct voter contact.
One by-product of these failures was the consultants' inability to understand how many voters — young people, people of colour, progressives, and yes, Arabs and Muslims — had been demoralised by President Biden's enabling of Israel's genocide in Gaza. The consultants also failed to grasp and address the angst of working-class and rural voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Instead of focusing on them, the campaign wasted days and resources courting Liz Cheney, whom they thought would win support from moderate, suburban Republican women, as if she could.
With much of this analysis already done, another autopsy was not needed. Nevertheless, the pressure on Martin to release the study continued to mount. As the chorus of critics grew louder, Martin confronted a 'damned if he did, damned if he did not' choice. To silence the critics, he reluctantly agreed to release the draft with caveats, noting that he had received it too late, it did not meet his standards and would have taken too long to finalise, and he did not agree with its contents or omissions.
As the loudest critics were fellow Democrats, Martin might have assumed goodwill would prevail and the criticism would subside. However, the harshest critics actually were not interested in getting policy or politics right for the next election, nor advancing a pro-Palestinian position in the Democratic Party. What they wanted was Martin's job, and so their criticism continued, coupled with calls for Martin to step down. Many leading critics had opposed his candidacy in the first place. Others were of the 'consultant class' — operatives who make their money running campaigns and were upset that Martin was redirecting Democratic Party funds from them to state parties as part of his strategy to rebuild the party from the bottom up. Others were donors who prefer the top-down status quo to Martin's approach of empowering states, party members, and grassroots Democrats. Finally, some were operatives from Obama's era who were never committed to building the party and saw an opportunity for social media clicks.
To date, with the context of these sub-plots, the members of the Democratic National Committee have continued to support Martin. They know he was not responsible for the 2024 fiasco. And while they can find fault in the way the 'autopsy release' was handled, they back his approach to party building.
Dr. James J. Zogby is the President of Arab American Institute.
