Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin had said releasing it would be a distraction.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin’s decision to keep a postmortem of the party’s 2024 election losses confidential drew public pushback from Democratic elected officials, party-aligned strategists, and activists, who said the report should be released.
Martin said on Dec. 18 that the DNC had completed its review but would not publish it, arguing that its disclosure would distract from the party’s goal of winning upcoming elections.
“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,” Martin said in a statement provided to media outlets. “Here’s our North Star: Does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”
Details of the report were not disclosed and the DNC did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Epoch Times on the report and reaction to it.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the chamber’s chief deputy whip, called for the report to be released.
“I believe the DNC should release the report because 1) that’s what they said they were going to do 2) this is going to be a thing 3) if there’s good analysis we should see it,” he wrote on X.
In another post, responding to a comment on his initial post from a person saying to move on from last year, Schatz added: “I hated last year too. But I would like not to repeat it. If you find it personally unproductive to focus on past mistakes that’s fair enough. But any organization that fails that spectacularly has to figure out what went wrong and hash it out.”
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) told CNN he had not discussed the decision with DNC leadership, but he questioned why the party chose not to release the review.
Democrats can still be positioned for strong election cycles in 2026 and 2028, he said, arguing that publishing an analysis of what went wrong and what could be improved would not necessarily be harmful. Castro added he wants to look more closely at the situation to understand why the report is being kept private.
“I’m curious why they decided not to release it. … I don’t think that it hurts necessarily to release an analysis of what you think went wrong,” he said.
By Chase Smith
