A prominent New York Times columnist on Friday sharply criticized the Democratic National Committee’s delayed postmortem of Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 election loss, calling the report lacking in substance and raising questions about what it omitted.
Columnist Michelle Goldberg described the 192-page autopsy as “mysterious” and “anticlimactic” following months of internal Democratic debate over its release. She noted the report fails to address major issues including Israel, Gaza, President Joe Biden’s age concerns, and border policy vulnerabilities.
The analysis, written by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera and released Thursday, identified structural problems within the DNC itself. It found the committee had weakened its political infrastructure through reduced voter registration efforts, decreased financial support for state parties, and insufficient engagement with crucial voter groups.
The report also recommended Democrats refocus on voters in Middle America and the Republican South. However, it notably did not assign responsibility to Harris for her campaign, which spent $1.5 billion, or address how she became the party’s nominee after President Biden withdrew.
DNC Chair Ken Martin changed his position on the report’s public release after initially pledging transparency during his chairman campaign. “I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards,” Martin said, according to Fox News.
Goldberg wrote that the delayed release created suspicion among progressives, with some believing the DNC was protecting Harris’s 2028 prospects and others convinced leadership was suppressing findings about Gaza’s impact on the election. The committee ultimately released the report with disclaimers stating it reflected the author’s views only and that the DNC could not independently verify many claims.
Conservative Washington Post columnist Ramesh Ponnuru also focused on significant omissions. He noted the report addressed neither Biden’s age as a campaign issue, nor the border crisis, the party’s declining support among religious voters, or controversial progressive policy positions.
Rivera, the report’s author, had not worked on a presidential campaign in over two decades, according to reporting. The DNC released the document with annotations flagging claims that could not be verified.
This story has been updated. CNN’s politics team contributed to this report.