Democratic National Committee flip-flops, pulls plug on its 2024 election 'autopsy'

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is killing its autopsy of the party's sweeping setbacks in the 2024 election.

DNC Chair Ken Martin on Thursday said he decided against making public a report that he called for when he was first elected party chair at the beginning of the year.

The autopsy looked into what went wrong for the Democrats as they lost control of the White House and Senate and failed to win back the House majority in the 2024 elections, as Republicans made major gains with key Democratic Party voters.

Martin, in a statement, said releasing the report would be "a distraction" from the party's "core mission" to win back congressional majorities in next year's midterm elections. But his move was criticized not only by Republicans but also by fellow Democrats.

CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS WIDEN 2026 BATTLEFIELD

Democratic Party officials interviewed over 300 Democrats from all 50 states for the report, which Martin promised would drill down on the mistakes in 2024 and offer a roadmap to victory going forward.

There was controversy surrounding the report as it was being compiled, after reports last summer said the autopsy would skip analyzing whether former President Joe Biden should have run for re-election in 2024 and would pass on judging key decisions made by former Vice President Kamala Harris and her team, after she replaced Biden as the party's nominee.

DEMOCRATS END 30-YEAR LOSING STREAK IN THIS CITY

Throughout the process, Martin repeatedly pushed back on calling the report an "autopsy," since he noted that the Democratic Party wasn't dead. He instead labeled the report an "after-action review."

But fast-forward to present day, and Democrats are now energized heading into 2026, thanks to their decisive victories in last month's 2025 elections and their overperformances in a slew of special elections this year.

Martin, in explaining his decision, wrote, "We completed a comprehensive review of what happened in 2024 and are already putting our learnings into motion. And we're winning again - even in places that haven't gone blue in decades. 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," he emphasized.

Former DNC vice chair David Hogg slammed the move by Martin.

"They are spiking an autopsy of the election that gave us Trump 2.0. If party leaders won't take the steps required to rebuild ourselves into a winning coalition, we will take it into our own hands," Hogg warned in a social media post.

Hogg, a gun-control crusader who was elected a DNC vice chair as Martin won election as chair, stepped down from his position during the summer after upsetting party leaders for his efforts backing primary challenges against what he called "asleep at the wheel" older, longtime incumbents in safe, blue districts.

Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to then-President Barack Obama and a co-host of the popular progressive podcast 'Pod Save America,' also took to social media to criticize the move.

"This is a very bad decision that reeks of the caution and complacency that brought us to this moment," Pfeiffer wrote.

His podcast co-host and fellow Obama alum Jon Favreau called the DNC flip-flop "unreal" and "baffling."

"The DNC's actual position is that if the public knew more about what Democrats got wrong in the last election, it would hurt the party's chances in the next election," Favreau wrote on X. "How does this rebuild trust between the party insiders and grassroots activists and organizers?"

Responding to the news, Republican National Committee (RNC) national press secretary Kiersten Pels argued in a statement to Fox News, "Voters don't need an autopsy of Democrats' 2024 failures to understand why their party is collapsing. Ken Martin still can't connect the dots: voters and donors are fleeing because Democrats pour millions into radical candidates who hate this country. Now they're literally taking out loans to prop up a broken operation."

"Republicans sincerely hope they keep up the great work," Pels added.

POLL SHOCK: DEMOCRATS HIT ALL-TIME LOW

While Democrats are confident heading into the midterm election year, the DNC still dramatically trails the rival RNC in the crucial fundraising metric.

And the party's brand remains at all-time lows.

Only 18% of voters questioned in a Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday said they approved of the way Democrats in Congress are handling their job, while 73% percent disapproved.

That's the lowest job approval rating for the Democrats in Congress since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking this question 16 years ago.

Helping to fuel the sinking approval rating for congressional Democrats is their own party. Only 43% of Democrats questioned in the poll gave a thumbs up for the job Democratic lawmakers in Congress were doing, with 48% disapproving.

The poll was the latest this year to indicate the Democratic Party image hitting historic lows.