2026-05-21T14:00:08.417Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/dnc-autopsy-inside-story
最初，美国民主党全国委员会（DNC）的2024年大选复盘报告原定于去年春季发布。随后，民主党全国委员会主席肯·马丁在去年8月于其家乡明尼苏达州举行的民主党夏季会议上向成员承诺，“三周内”完成。之后又推迟到10月，再推迟到11月大选之后。
随后，马丁未给出任何解释，只称他突然不想再回顾过去，并宣布完全不会发布这份报告。
每一次延期都催生了一堆自私自利的阴谋论：马丁试图在哈里斯考虑再次参选总统时保护她；奥巴马竞选团队的校友互相袒护；高价顾问试图掩盖数百万美元的咨询费；民主党试图隐瞒选民对加沙危机的反应。
其中流传最广的一种说法是：或许这份复盘报告根本就不存在。
但它确实存在。至少有一个版本是存在的。CNN将全文发布该报告，并首次披露原本旨在剖析民主党大选失利原因的复盘报告，如何演变成一连串新的失误，在哈里斯失利一年半后仍笼罩着民主党，并成为马丁和民主党全国委员会的一场危机。
编者按： 点击此处阅读完整复盘报告。点击此处查看CNN对该报告的要点总结。
马丁将这项首要任务托付给了一位好友——民主党顾问保罗·里维拉。里维拉自愿兼职参与这项工作，并且等了数月才联系拜登和哈里斯竞选团队的关键官员。该竞选团队的众多高层决策者最终都未接受采访，而哈里斯本人也曾私下表达不满，称围绕这份文件的质疑持续不断。
与此同时，随着公众要求公布复盘报告的呼声日益高涨，马丁做客《Pod Save America》节目为自己不公布报告的决定辩护，这段采访随即 viral 传播。
更让民主党总部内外的工作人员对他失去信任的是：这次采访之所以能成行，是因为他在白宫记者晚宴前一晚的一个由Grindr赞助的派对上与主持人对峙后才同意的，此前主持人因复盘报告的事对他发难过于严厉。
多位民主党全国委员会的前捐赠者告诉马丁，他们不会再捐款——民主党全国委员会目前相比资金充裕的共和党对手已负债累累——而马丁对复盘报告的处理方式让他们愤怒不已。另有一些捐赠者撤回了此前承诺的捐款。与此同时，马丁在私下谈话中仍将资金困境归咎于哈里斯竞选团队留下的债务，尽管哈里斯此后为民主党全国委员会筹集的资金远超这一数额。
直到几天前，民主党全国委员会内部也只有少数工作人员看过部分复盘报告。知情人士透露，马丁曾多次在以为其他人拿到报告时陷入恐慌。但在CNN获取到报告内容的大量细节，包括部分由AI模型生成的捐赠者闭门会议演示幻灯片后，民主党全国委员会官员将他们手中的全部材料交给了CNN，经独立核实，周四发布的这份报告与另一版本的文件一致。
据民主党全国委员会称，CNN发布的版本缺少包括结论在内的关键章节，因为这些章节并未提交。报告中还存在事实错误，比如拼写错前新泽西州州长乔恩·科尔津和前肯塔基州州长马特·贝文的名字，还错误列出了2024年北卡罗来纳州州长选举的得票优势。
民主党全国委员会在报告中加入了自己对里维拉论点的反驳，并附带一份免责声明，称“本报告仅反映作者个人观点，不代表民主党全国委员会立场。民主党全国委员会未收到本报告中许多主张的原始素材、采访记录或支持数据，因此无法独立核实其中提出的主张。”
马丁向CNN发表声明，为自己处理复盘报告的方式道歉。
“当选民主党全国委员会主席时，我委托开展了2024年大选的事后复盘，希望这份报告诚实透明，能为民主党未来提供切实可行的具体经验教训，”马丁说道。“去年年底我收到这份报告时，它还远未达到公开出版的标准，而且由于没有提供原始素材，我不得不重新开始。我不能出于诚意在这份报告上加盖民主党全国委员会的批准印章。
“在去年11月民主党取得大胜后，我不想制造分心事件，但我没有公布报告，反而造成了更大的分心。对此，我深表歉意。为充分透明起见，我将原样发布我们收到的这份完整报告，未作任何编辑和删减。它不符合我的标准，也不会符合你们的标准，但我之所以这么做，是因为人们需要信任民主党，信任我们的承诺。”
里维拉拒绝置评。
“没有哪一份文件能直接指出唯一可以做出不同选择的地方，能直接指出哪一个人可以通过不同的行为来弥补选举中的失误。这不是单一因素的问题，而是诸多因素共同作用的结果。而我们都知道这些因素是什么，”2024年大选期间担任密歇根民主党主席的拉沃拉·巴恩斯说道，她曾接受复盘报告的采访。
“整件事之所以闹大，是因为对普通人来说它听起来很神秘，”巴恩斯补充道。“当然，这件事看起来比实际更严重，因为人们会觉得有人在隐瞒什么。”
复盘报告内容一览——以及未被纳入的部分
这份复盘报告指责拜登政府早在2024年6月总统辩论表现迫使拜登退选之前，就未能为哈里斯提供更多支持，尤其是在移民问题上——当时特朗普竞选团队将该问题与作为政府所谓“边境沙皇”的哈里斯绑定。
报告分析了哈里斯在其失利的州以及北卡罗来纳州表现不如民主党参议院候选人的原因，同时承认北卡罗来纳州州长乔希·斯坦的对手是共和党副州长马克·罗宾逊，后者因CNN的KFILE栏目揭露其在色情网站上发布大量煽动性和种族主义言论而落选。
例如，报告援引与民主党州长协会和民主党检察长协会的对话，就哈里斯表现落后于斯坦的原因得出了若干明确结论，最终提出：“候选人素质和知名度对所有下议院选举都很重要，但某些选举动态不会在整个选票中均匀转移。竞选团队需要构建自己的对比和定位。”
但报告回避了许多自2024年以来导致民主党内部分裂的话题：拜登决定再次参选、哈里斯未经提名程序就成为候选人，以及该竞选团队关于加沙战争的立场如何影响了密歇根等关键州的民主党选民。
去年10月，在弗吉尼亚州米德尔堡一家酒店举行的民主党全国委员会全国财务委员会顶级捐赠者闭门会议上，里维拉进行了长达一小时的演示，幻灯片部分直接来自报告，部分则是将他的研究结果输入AI引擎生成的。
其中一张向CNN展示的幻灯片包含柱状图，比较了哈里斯、蒂姆·瓦尔兹、唐纳德·特朗普和JD·万斯的演讲、新闻发布会、活动、采访和播客数量，指出特朗普和万斯的露面次数多于哈里斯和瓦尔兹。
另一张幻灯片则按“内容/主题”追踪候选人的“关注领域”，声称特朗普和万斯对移民问题的关注次数是哈里斯的数倍。里维拉使用了一种不明确的分类方法，为特朗普、哈里斯及其竞选搭档的10类内容或主题分配百分比。每个候选人的百分比总和都远高于100%。
看过部分复盘报告或演示的人士反应不一，有人大开眼界，也有人不屑一顾。
“这是一份非常严谨的文件，应该公之于众，”一位看过捐赠者演示的人士说道。
“逻辑混乱，”另一位人士说道。
对流程和时机的不满
马丁是在前马里兰州州长马丁·奥马利在自己竞选民主党全国委员会主席的冷门竞选中将复盘报告作为议题提出后，才提出开展这项工作的。马丁上任后，甚至私下批评前主席汤姆·佩雷斯隐瞒希拉里·克林顿2016年失利复盘报告的决定。
他邀请目前定居德克萨斯州的资深但低调的民主党人士里维拉负责这项工作。两人关系密切，这一点是优势，但马丁也看中里维拉未曾参与民主党全国委员会或哈里斯竞选团队，因此可以保持独立。
当时和现在的其他参与人士都指出，问题在于里维拉自2004年约翰·克里竞选团队的糟糕经历后，就再也没有参与过总统竞选活动。许多了解里维拉的人形容他的观点精明却 unconventional，但也表示他在对话中往往带着预设立场。
尽管马丁将复盘报告列为优先事项，但他让里维拉以兼职志愿者的身份负责这项工作，同时还要兼顾其他客户。里维拉有时会说，他只能在上午9点前、晚上7点后或周末接受采访。马丁对里维拉的工作限制极严，以至于最高级别的工作人员只能偶尔提出一些建议，告知他应该考虑联系哪些人。
到了原计划完成报告的春季末，里维拉才联系了摇摆州的民主党州主席。多位州主席认为，他们只是被用来验证马丁和里维拉早已得出的结论。
“我感觉自己属于这样一类人：作为民主党全国委员会的利益相关者，可能有一些挫败感想要倾诉，比如党的忠实支持者没有被倾听，”一位州主席告诉CNN。
“很明显，这更像是肯对民主党未来的看法，基于2024年大选的视角，而不是‘复盘报告’，”另一位参与此事的人士说道。
直到去年9月，也就是他开展工作数月后，里维拉才试图联系哈里斯竞选团队的关键助手。他后来告诉人们，他原本就打算将哈里斯团队作为最后一站，因为他想先收集其他信息。但拖延这么久让竞选团队助手心生疑虑。
据知情人士透露，里维拉最终多次错过去年的截止日期。直到感恩节后，马丁才拿到一份文件，多位人士称这份文件充其量只是半成品。
里维拉联系了谁、又没联系谁，部分揭示了他所撰写内容的问题所在。尽管民主党全国委员会称里维拉和其他人对“来自全美50个州的消息人士”进行了“数百次采访”，但据多位参与人士透露，他直到去年9月才开始与拜登和哈里斯竞选团队的负责人交谈。
未接受采访的人士包括：拜登、哈里斯或瓦尔兹。高层战略家，包括拜登助手迈克·多尼隆、安妮塔·邓恩、史蒂夫·里切蒂和布鲁斯·里德，以及哈里斯的核心决策人士如珍·奥马利·狄龙、斯蒂芬妮·卡特和大卫·普洛夫，也都未接受采访。哈里斯的亲密助手希拉·尼克斯、柯尔斯滕·艾伦、艾琳·威尔逊、布莱恩·法伦和贾莉莎·华盛顿-普莱斯，以及瓦尔兹的随行幕僚长萨姆·科纳尔——他也曾担任民主党全国委员会执行主任，同样未接受采访。
大多数人从未被邀请，参与的人更是少之又少，不过竞选团队副经理罗布·弗莱厄蒂参加了Zoom通话，提出了关于打造有机品牌而非付费品牌的想法，以及哈里斯参选的理由为何不明确。弗莱厄蒂后来在《The Bulwark》上发表了自己向里维拉讲述的内容。
负责竞选团队民调与分析的丽贝卡·西格尔与其他几位民调专家和筹款人一起接受了里维拉的采访。里维拉没有向西格尔索要竞选团队的付费媒体计划、追踪民调结果和广告测试结果，这些数据能更深入地反映哪些策略有效、哪些无效。
在2024年大选中接替马丁担任民主党全国委员会主席的杰米·哈里森，直到去年9月底才与里维拉交谈，此时项目早已逾期，而且还是哈里森主动联系里维拉才得以成行。
支持巴勒斯坦的中东研究所负责人声称，里维拉曾同意拜登对以色列的政策是“净负面因素”，并随后传阅了一份CNN获取的信件，称民主党全国委员会“压制这份报告的动机，至少部分是因为他们发现对以色列的支持对民主党来说是选举负担”。但据知情人士透露，里维拉并没有相关数据，复盘报告中也未包含此类结论。
关于哈里斯应该就加沙问题发表何种言论的辩论双方核心领袖都未接到关于复盘报告的采访邀请。他们包括支持哈里斯的佐治亚州众议员、巴勒斯坦裔美国人鲁瓦·罗曼，以及领导“未承诺”运动的其他领袖——该运动推动了初选抗议投票，并争取在民主党全国代表大会上安排支持巴勒斯坦的发言人。犹太民主党委员会首席执行官哈利·索伊弗也未接到采访邀请，民主党多数为以色列游说团体的官员同样未被联系。
“这种缺乏好奇心的态度实在令人费解，”罗曼告诉CNN。
少数为复盘报告辩护的人士认为，民主党全国委员会需要的是系统性分析，而非被某一场选举的特定情况束缚，他们承认马丁收到的文件未完成，但表示仍值得在此基础上推进——不过他们拒绝了CNN要求将他们的论点署名发表的请求。
一些人称，包括采访笔记和转录内容在内的基础研究已从民主党全国委员会服务器上删除。但一位熟悉流程的民主党全国委员会消息人士告诉CNN，里维拉甚至没有提供他采访过的人员名单、笔记或录音。该消息人士还称，他也没有提供高级竞选领导层交给他的部分数据。
围绕复盘报告的争执早已超越了一份文件本身。随着民主党人为即将到来的漫长而激烈的总统初选以及随后同样漫长而激烈的大选做准备，多位资深幕僚和参与民主党全国委员会工作的人士认为，马丁对复盘报告的处理方式证明他不适合领导民主党。
马丁的任期为四年，至2029年结束，只有他辞职才能被罢免。最近几周，他一直在走访潜在的党代会主办城市，并告诉许多人，他计划选定的不仅是2028年，还有2032年的主办地。
与此同时，里维拉仍偶尔出现在国会山几个街区外的民主党全国委员会总部，因为他仍在管理与马丁共同构思的另一个项目——战略与创新办公室。多位助手表示，看到里维拉出现在民主党全国委员会总部会让士气大跌，因为这让他们想起他给团队带来的麻烦，以及马丁由此造成的更大混乱。
为中期选举做准备的工作仍在加紧推进，但对话往往会回到复盘报告这件事上。里维拉常说“不能称之为复盘报告，因为民主党还没完蛋”，这句话现在被当作苦涩的笑话引用。
“任何认为这一切都是恶意或蓄意的想法……”一位前民主党全国委员会官员叹了口气说道。“其实更像是《活宝三人组》式的乌龙闹剧。”
尽管这场风波备受关注，但为民主党竞选2026年席位的幕僚们表示，他们早在几个月前就对这份报告能产生任何有用成果不抱希望了。
一位参与此事的人士总结了接受CNN采访的许多人的感受：“从一开始就是个糟糕的主意。”
Autopsy of the autopsy: How the DNC’s 2024 post-mortem turned into a crisis
2026-05-21T14:00:08.417Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/dnc-autopsy-inside-story
First, the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy of the 2024 election was slated to come out last spring. Then, DNC chair Ken Martin promised members at their summer meeting last August in his home state of Minnesota, “Three weeks.” Then October. Then after the November elections.
Then, with Martin offering no explanation other than he suddenly didn’t want to look backward, he announced he wouldn’t be releasing it at all.
Each delay fed a rat’s nest of self-serving conspiracy theories: Martin was trying to protect Kamala Harris as she considers another presidential run, Obama campaign alumni were protecting each other, high-priced consultants were trying to keep millions in fees from being revealed, or the party was trying to hide how voters reacted to the Gaza crisis.
Or one of the most widespread: Maybe the autopsy didn’t even exist at all.
It does. At least, a version does. CNN is publishing it in full, along with never-before-reported details of how what was meant to be a look at what went wrong for the Democratic Party instead turned into a fresh collection of blunders that continues to hang over the party a year and a half after Harris lost and has become a crisis for Martin and the DNC.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Read the full autopsy here. CNN’s takeaways from the autopsy are available here.
Martin entrusted a top priority to a friend, Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, who volunteered to work on it part-time and waited several months to contact key officials with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ campaigns. Many top decision-makers in the campaigns were ultimately never interviewed, and Harris herself has expressed frustration privately that questions about the document have gone on.
Meanwhile, with public demands to see the autopsy growing, Martin booked himself onto “Pod Save America” to defend his decision not to release it, in an interview that immediately went viral.
Sapping faith in him even further among Democratic operatives inside and outside party headquarters: The interview only happened because he agreed to it after confronting the hosts at a Grindr-sponsored party the night before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, annoyed they were giving him too hard of a time over the autopsy.
Multiple past donors to the DNC, which is already in debt compared with its cash-flush Republican counterpart, have told Martin they will not write checks because of how he handled the autopsy. Others have clawed back promised donations in their fury over his decision to hold the report. Martin, meanwhile, has continued in private conversations to blame the money troubles on debt left over from Harris’ campaign, though she has since raised more money than that for the DNC.
Until just days ago, only a few staff at the DNC had seen even part of the autopsy. People familiar with the matter say Martin seemed to panic at several points when he thought others had gotten hold of it. But after CNN obtained extensive details about its contents, including slides from a presentation at a donor retreat that were in part generated using an AI model, DNC officials turned what they say is the entirety of what they have over to CNN, which independently verified the report published Thursday matches another version of the document.
The version CNN is publishing is missing key sections, including a conclusion, because those sections weren’t submitted, according to the DNC. There are factual errors, from misspellings of the names of former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin to incorrectly listing the margin of victory in the 2024 race for North Carolina governor.
The DNC included in the document its own rebuttals of arguments Rivera makes and a disclaimer that the report “reflects the views of the author, not the DNC. 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.”
Martin issued a statement to CNN apologizing for how he handled the autopsy.
“When I was elected DNC chair, I commissioned an after action review of the 2024 election that I wanted to be honest and transparent, and with actionable and specific takeaways for the future of the Democratic Party,” Martin said. “When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on the report that was produced.
“After last November’s massive Democratic wins, I didn’t want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize. For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”
Rivera declined to comment.
“There’s no document that’s going to point directly to the one thing that could have been done differently, the one person who could have behaved differently to fix what happen in the election. It’s not on this one thing. It’s many, many things. And we all know what those many things were,” said Lavora Barnes, the Michigan Democratic Party chair during the 2024 election, who was interviewed for the autopsy.
“It’s become this whole thing because it sounds mysterious to people,” Barnes added. “Of course it seems like a bigger deal than it was because it seems like something is being hidden.”
What’s in the autopsy – and what’s not
The autopsy accuses the Biden administration of not doing more to boost Harris long before the president’s June 2024 debate performance forced him to withdraw, particularly on immigration given the Trump campaign tying the issue to her as the administration’s so-called “border czar.”
It analyzes why Harris underperformed Democratic Senate candidates in states she lost as well as North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, while acknowledging Stein ran against Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who lost after his extensive history of posting inflammatory and racist comments on a pornography website was revealed by CNN’s KFILE.
Citing conversations with the Democratic Governors Association and Democratic Attorneys General Association, for example, the document has several firm conclusions about why Harris ran behind Stein, building to the assertion: “Candidate quality and name recognition matter for all down ballot races, but some dynamics don’t transfer uniformly across the ballot. Campaigns need to build their own contrast and definition.”
But it avoids many of the topics that have divided the party since 2024: Biden’s decision to run again, Harris taking over as the nominee without a nominating process or how the ticket’s positions on the war in Gaza affected Democrats in key states like Michigan.
At the DNC National Finance Committee’s retreat for top donors at a hotel in Middleburg, Virginia, last October, Rivera gave an hourlong presentation with slides in part drawn directly from the report, in part via running his findings through an AI engine.
One slide shared with CNN had a bar graph that compared the number of speeches, press conferences, events, interviews and podcasts for Harris, Tim Walz, Donald Trump and JD Vance. It pointed to Trump and Vance making more appearances than Harris and Walz.
Another tracked the candidates’ “areas of focus” by “content/theme” to argue that Trump and Vance focused many times more on immigration than Harris did. Rivera used an unclear methodology for the breakdown, assigning percentages to 10 categories of content or theme for Trump, Harris and their running mates. The percentages in every column, one for each candidate, added up to well over 100%.
The reactions of those who have seen parts of the autopsy or the presentation have been a mix of eyes being opened and eyes being rolled.
“This is a very high-integrity document that needs to see the light of day,” said one of the people who saw the donor presentation.
“Not cogent,” said another.
Complaints about process and timing
Martin called for an autopsy only after former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley made an issue of it in his own long-shot race for DNC chair. Once he did, Martin locked in, even ripping in private conversations former chair Tom Perez’s decision to withhold an autopsy of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss.
He asked Rivera, a longtime but low-profile Democratic hand based now in Texas, to be in charge. They were close, which helped, but Martin also liked that Rivera hadn’t been involved with the DNC or the Harris campaign, so he could be independent.
The problem, others involved argued then and now, is that Rivera hadn’t worked on any presidential bid since an inglorious turn on John Kerry’s campaign in 2004. Many who know Rivera describe him as having a savvy yet unconventional point of view, but say he also comes into conversations with a preset viewpoint.
Though he’d set the autopsy as a priority, Martin decided to have Rivera in charge as a part-time volunteer while juggling other clients. Rivera would sometimes say he was available to conduct interviews only before 9 a.m., after 7 p.m. or on weekends. Martin kept him so siloed that the most senior staff could do was occasionally chip in with suggestions of people he should consider contacting.
By late spring, after the original timeframe to have the report finished, Rivera reached out to the state party chairs in the battleground states. Several believed they were simply being used to validate conclusions Martin and Rivera had already made.
“I felt like I was in the category of people who are DNC stakeholders who might have some frustration they want to vent about how the party faithful weren’t listened to,” one state party chair told CNN.
“It was very clear that it felt like Ken’s theory of the case for the future of the party through the lens of 2024, as opposed to ‘autopsy,’” said another who spoke for it.
Not until September, several months into his review, did Rivera try to reach out to key Harris campaign aides. He has told people since that he always meant for the Harris team to be his last stop since he wanted to gather other information first. But holding out that long made campaign aides suspicious.
Rivera ultimately blew past several deadlines last year in finishing the autopsy, according to people familiar with the matter. It wasn’t until after Thanksgiving that Martin got a document that multiple people say was at best unfinished.
Who Rivera reached out to, and who he didn’t, tells part of the story of what he was producing. While the DNC has said Rivera and others conducted “hundreds of interviews” with “sources from all 50 states,” he didn’t start to talk to the people who ran the Biden and Harris campaigns until September, according to multiple people involved.
Among those not included in interviews: Biden, Harris or Walz. Top strategists, including Biden aides Mike Donilon, Anita Dunn, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed, and top Harris decision-makers like Jen O’Malley Dillon, Stephanie Cutter and David Plouffe, weren’t interviewed either. Neither were close Harris aides Sheila Nix, Kirsten Allen, Erin Wilson, Brian Fallon and Jalisa Washington-Price, or Sam Cornale, the Walz traveling chief of staff who had also been executive director of the DNC.
Most were never asked and even fewer participated, though deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty came to Zoom calls with ideas about building an organic brand versus a paid brand and how unclear Harris’ reasons for running came across. Flaherty has since published his own account of what he told Rivera in The Bulwark.
Becca Siegel, who oversaw polling and analytics for the campaign, spoke to Rivera as did several other pollsters and fundraisers. Rivera did not ask Siegel for the campaign’s paid media plans, tracking polls and ad testing results, which go much deeper into what worked and what didn’t.
Jaime Harrison, who preceded Martin as chair through the 2024 election, didn’t speak to Rivera until late September, months after the project was supposed to be complete and only after he reached out to offer.
Leaders of the pro-Palestinian Institute for Middle East Understanding claimed that Rivera agreed that Biden’s policy toward Israel was a “net-negative” and later circulated a letter obtained by CNN claiming the DNC’s “suppression of this report is motivated, at least in part, by their finding that support for Israel is an electoral liability for the party.” But Rivera did not have that data, according to people familiar with the process, and the autopsy does not include any such findings.
Key leaders on both sides of the debate over what Harris should have said about Gaza didn’t get a call about the autopsy. They included Ruwa Romman, a Georgia state representative and a Palestinian American who endorsed the vice president, and other leaders of the Uncommitted movement, which led the primary protest vote effort and push to get a pro-Palestinian speaker at the convention. Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, didn’t get a call either, nor did any officials at the Democratic Majority for Israel.
“The lack of curiosity is honestly baffling to me,” Romman told CNN.
The few defenders of the autopsy, who contend that the DNC needed a systemic analysis not caught up in the particular circumstances of one election, acknowledge the document Martin received wasn’t finished but say it was still worth building on — though they declined CNN’s requests to attach their names to these arguments.
Some say underlying research, including notes and transcripts of interviews, was deleted from DNC servers. But a DNC source familiar with the process told CNN that Rivera didn’t provide even a list of names of people he spoke to, notes or recordings. Nor, the source said, did he provide some of the data that he was given to him by senior campaign leadership.
The fight over the autopsy has become about much more than a document. As Democrats think ahead about the next long, bitter presidential primary battle leading into a long, bitter general election, multiple senior operatives and others involved with the DNC argue Martin’s handling of the autopsy proves he’s not ready to lead the party.
Martin has a four-year term through 2029, and he can be removed only if he resigns. He’s spent the last few weeks making site visits to potential convention host cities and has told many he plans to pick the locations for not just 2028, but 2032.
Rivera, meanwhile, has kept showing up occasionally at the DNC headquarters a few blocks from Capitol Hill, since he is still managing another project jointly conceived with Martin called the Office of Strategy and Innovation. Multiple aides say that seeing Rivera around the DNC makes morale nosedive, as they’re reminded of the mess he put them in, and the bigger mess Martin made out of it.
Efforts continue to ramp up for the midterms, but conversations often come back to the autopsy. Rivera’s repeated line that they shouldn’t call it an autopsy because the DNC isn’t dead now gets quoted as a rueful joke.
“The notion that any of this was nefarious or by design…” sighed one former DNC official. “It’s much more Keystone Kops than that.”
For all the attention to the drama, operatives working to win 2026 races for Democrats say they months ago gave up on anything useful being produced.
One person involved summarized the feelings of many interviewed by CNN: “This was a bad idea in the first place.”
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