2026-05-21T14:00:08.058Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/dnc-autopsy-takeaways-vis
- 民主党全国委员会主席肯·马丁在党内成员强烈抗议后，从最初拒绝发布转向发布了一份未完成的民主党大选复盘报告。
- 报告指出，民主党未能为卡玛拉·哈里斯的参选创造有利条件，且竞选期间对唐纳德·特朗普的攻击效果不佳。
- 报告敦促民主党摒弃身份政治，在选举周期更早阶段投入资源以拉近与选民的联系。
本文由AI生成摘要，并经CNN编辑审核。
自2024年大选以来，民主党一直在探寻败选原因——为何会让特朗普重新入主白宫。
在很长一段时间里，外界都在期待民主党全国委员会发布一份“复盘报告”，专门解答这一核心问题。
但这份复盘报告始终未能问世。最终，马丁表示不会对外发布。
但如今，在党内部分人士的强烈抗议下，马丁改变了立场，发布了这份文件的未完成版本。
编者注： 点击此处阅读CNN获取的完整复盘报告。点击此处阅读CNN关于复盘报告撰写过程的报道。
马丁告诉CNN，这份报告远未到可以公之于众的程度，缺乏原始资料意味着重新完善报告需要从头再来。他曾表示不想发布这样一份半成品，以免分散公众注意力，但如今他认为，正是因为自己迟迟不发布报告，才造成了干扰。
“为了完全透明，我将按收到的原样发布这份完整、未经编辑、未删减的报告，”马丁说。“它达不到我的标准，也不会符合你们的标准，但我这么做是因为民众需要信任民主党，信任我们的承诺。”
事实上，这份文件存在事实错误，有时逻辑混乱，也没有提出连贯的未来战略，更多是零散的分析观点。
文件顶部的免责声明指出，报告仅反映作者、民主党顾问保罗·里维拉的个人观点，并不代表民主党全国委员会的立场。据知情人士透露，里维拉是以兼职志愿者身份撰写该报告的，他拒绝置评。
以下是这份文件所展现的核心内容。
报告开篇承认，包括2024年大选在内的近期选举结果都极为接近，这可能会让部分民主党人主张仅进行小幅调整，而非彻底重塑党的竞选策略。
但报告驳斥了这种相对保守的思路。
“这种想法本质上是否认现实，会阻碍民主党寻求真正的问责，阻碍我们做出必要改变，以兑现对美国民众的承诺，”报告写道。
报告称，自巴拉克·奥巴马2008年大胜以来，民主党一直在“停滞与倒退之间摇摆”。总体而言，自奥巴马成功连任后，民主党在选举中持续失利。
“这些失利直接源于我们错失了在各州、各县以及地方政党和候选人身上投入资源的机会，”报告称。
“民主党候选人始终无法展现出力量、团结和领导力，选民因此渐行渐远。”
报告甚至对2025年选举中的亮眼表现泼了冷水，认为“其中部分选举的激烈程度远超民主党理应容忍的范围”。
报告还指出，民主党近年来在大型选举中获胜，往往“可归因于反向党派对立——即共和党提名了存在严重缺陷的候选人”。
前副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯的参选历程极为特殊：她在大选仅三个半月前才被推至候选人位置。
复盘报告指出，前总统乔·拜登的竞选团队和白宫未能为哈里斯的参选创造有利条件。
例如，报告称在2022年中期选举前，白宫曾要求民主党全国委员会开展民调，以确定第一夫人吉尔·拜登如何才能最有效地为丈夫提供政治助力，但却未针对哈里斯开展类似调研。
报告称，即便哈里斯作为副总统一直在处理移民等棘手问题，“未开展相关调研也是一次重大的机会错失”。
“因此，在候选人更替的关键时刻，民调团队发现，我们没有关于副总统的自我调研数据，无法用于制定调研工具，”复盘报告写道。
但对拜登团队的批评不止于此。
报告还指责拜登政府未能更积极地“驳斥或纠正”右翼将哈里斯贴上“边境事务负责人”的标签（她的实际任务是解决中美洲国家的移民根源问题）。
报告还暗示，政府未能充分宣传哈里斯的形象。
“全国竞选团队未能有效打击特朗普的负面形象，白宫也未能在三年半的时间里有效支持副总统哈里斯，以在候选人更替前提升她的支持率，”复盘报告称。
但在如何定义特朗普的问题上，各方似乎都难辞其咎。
复盘报告指出，民主党整体未能提醒美国人，为何他们在特朗普第一任期内就已厌恶他。
“认为特朗普的负面形象‘根深蒂固’是一次重大的分析和现实失误，”报告称，“考虑到他在本届任期不到一年时支持率就大幅下滑。”
报告称，民主党未能拿出与特朗普相当的“负面攻击火力”，并得出结论，“有必要更有效地论证为何特朗普不应再次担任公职”。
“理由是充分的，但竞选信息并未传递这一点，”报告称。
报告称哈里斯及其竞选团队过于想当然
在对哈里斯竞选团队的具体批评中，问题同样不少。
报告多处指出，竞选团队存在想当然和过度自信的问题。
具体而言：
- “哈里斯将竞选重点放在受过大学教育的郊区，这导致民主党候选人乔希·斯坦在北卡罗来纳州州长选举中出现了无法挽回的支持率差距。”
- “哈里斯在全国范围内的农村地区支持率落后，这在摇摆州成为了难以逾越的障碍。……哈里斯放弃了美国农村地区，认为城市和郊区的支持率足以弥补差距。”
- “哈里斯的竞选团队似乎依赖于‘特朗普不可接受’这一点，而非构建支持哈里斯的正面形象。”
或许最关键的是，报告称哈里斯未能清晰地定义自己，也未能准确定义特朗普。
“哈里斯除了‘不是特朗普’以及‘检察官vs重罪犯’之外，难以树立清晰的个人形象，”报告称。“短暂的竞选时间固然不利，但竞选团队未能迅速确定如何标签化特朗普、如何定义哈里斯本人。”
2024年大选期间，特朗普团队推出的反变性广告最为人熟知，其标语是“卡玛拉支持‘他们/她们’，特朗普总统支持你”。
复盘报告将该广告——以及作为其依据的哈里斯的相关言论——描述为一个无法调和的问题。
报告称，竞选团队的民调人员“都承认这则攻击广告非常有效”。
“如果副总统不愿改变立场——而她确实没有改变——那么任何回应都无济于事，”复盘报告称。
报告随后补充道：“民调人员普遍同意竞选领导层的观点——鉴于当时的风险和时间限制，重点应放在攻击特朗普身上。”
拜登曾声称，他仍认为自己本可以赢得2024年大选。
但在对更换候选人这一决定的罕见评判中，复盘报告暗示，用哈里斯替换拜登至少帮助了其他民主党候选人胜选。
“让卡玛拉·哈里斯参选实际上帮助下议院民主党保住了部分基础选民支持，”报告称。“如果拜登仍留在候选人名单上，下议院民主党可能会面临更严峻的挑战。”
报告建议摒弃身份政治，转向中产阶级诉求
报告中多次被嘲讽提及的一个词是“身份政治”。
报告反复将其描述为民主党需要摆脱的拐杖，转而关注民生议题，如经济负担能力和中产阶级诉求。
报告称，斯坦的大胜证明了“少关注抽象议题和身份政治，转而在选民最关心的问题上与他们建立联系——包括经济、救灾和解决住房负担能力问题——的正确路径”。
报告称，内华达州参议员杰基·罗森和亚利桑那州现任参议员鲁本·加列戈展示了“全年持续投入、传递经济信息、解决生活成本问题，比身份政治更能打动选民”。
报告建议，若想争取男性选民，民主党应派出男性代言人，“不要想当然地认为身份政治能留住少数族裔男性选民”。
报告将斯坦、加列戈和密歇根州参议员埃利萨·斯洛特金都列为能够有效向中产阶级选民、农村选民和/或拉丁裔选民传递信息的候选人，而其他民主党人则未能做到这一点。报告还高度赞扬了罗森不知疲倦的竞选运作以及她与内华达州至关重要的服务业的联系。
报告传递的信息似乎是：找到与本州或本选区选民契合、能够真正吸引当地中产阶级选民的候选人。
除了对民主党在政治上的表现感到失望外，报告还认为共和党在这方面更胜一筹。
报告将共和党描绘为更成功地全方位传递竞选信息，而民主党则过于软弱、受限，无法发起强有力的反击。
“有时，民主党似乎试图在辩论中获胜，而共和党则专注于赢得选举，”报告称。“即便选民情绪被愤怒主导，民主党仍在以理性为框架的生态系统中运作。”
报告多次批评民主党没有“持续发力”，未能加大信息宣传力度。
“区别在于，右翼利益集团采取更长远的策略，在民主党内部放大极端化的信息和候选人，意图‘妖魔化’所有民主党人，”报告称。“如果不采取积极的反击策略和手段，这种手段就会奏效。”
最后，报告指出共和党更善于从过往竞选——包括民主党获胜的竞选——中吸取教训。
“共和党在2024年的胜利，很大程度上源于他们比民主党更善于从奥巴马总统的胜选中吸取经验，”报告总结道。“共和党的竞选活动以数据为支撑，通过社交媒体放大影响力，并得到各级狂热支持者的助力。”
但报告未提出明确的具体解决方案
如果有人希望从这份报告中找到民主党的制胜良方——哪怕只是具体的建议——恐怕都会失望而归。
报告大多只是对事件进行复盘，对民主党败选的原因提出了诸多评判，但在提出改进方案时，大多只是笼统地建议民主党重新思考、更好地完成某些工作，并未详细说明具体做法。
在这份192页报告的结尾附近，有一段颇具启发性的文字。
“为胜选而建设需要新的思路，为长远发展而建设需要思考下一次选举之外的事情，”报告称。“这需要找到在正确的地点与正确的选民建立联系的最佳方式，而2024年大选已经证明，我们有足够的资金以正确的方式开展所有工作。”
正如马丁所言，这份报告尚未准备好公开面世，其中存在大量错误和令人费解的内容——甚至有些内容在草稿阶段就显得不合常理。
例如，报告两次列出北卡罗来纳州共和党州长候选人马克·罗宾逊的得票率——45%和42.7%——但均与他的实际得票率（40.1%）不符。
报告曾一度将华盛顿州州长鲍勃·弗格森列为行事正确的候选人范例，随后又指出他实际上比哈里斯的表现更差。
报告还拼错了多位政客的名字，如共和党前肯塔基州州长马特·贝文（写成了“Brevin”）以及民主党前新泽西州州长乔恩·科津（写成了“John”）。
出错在所难免，但这表明该报告在撰写过程中并未投入极高的严谨度，这可能会影响人们对其结论的重视程度。
不过，有一条明确的建议：民主党需要更持续地投入资源，并在竞选周期更早阶段开展工作。
复盘报告指出，在最引人注目的选举中，民主党在筹款方面一直领先于共和党，因此不应将资金留到竞选后期才投入。
报告质问民主党候选人何时才能“在竞选周期更早阶段以及两次选举之间投入资源”。
这与报告的核心主题相契合，即民主党需要“持续发力”——始终为下一次竞选做准备、传递信息并搭建胜选所需的基础。
“我们有足够的资金采取不同的思考和行动方式，”报告称。“民主党必须摒弃陈腐且适得其反的做法，为胜选和长远发展而建设。”
报告未涉及2024年大选期间一些最重大、最受关注的议题。
其中包括未对拜登再次参选的决定作出评判、加沙战争（该事件导致民主党内部分裂）的影响，以及哈里斯未经任何选举程序就接任候选人位置的事实。
报告也未提及哈里斯未接受播客主持人乔·罗根的采访一事，许多分析人士认为这是一次重大失误。
此类复盘报告有助于厘清败选原因。
但就像2012年共和党党的复盘报告一样，它们也可能被无视。那份共和党复盘报告曾建议共和党在移民政策上采取温和立场以争取拉丁裔选民；但特朗普在2016年采取了完全相反的策略，仍成功胜选。
而这份新的民主党复盘报告实际上提到，民主党在2022年中期选举后曾开展过一次审查，但未落实相关建议。
报告称，民主党全国委员会的关键工作人员曾试图确定需要改进的领域，并撰写了一份包含七项发现和五项建议的报告。
“不幸的是，这些建议均未按计划时间表落实，甚至根本没有落实，”报告称。
Takeaways from the DNC autopsy
2026-05-21T14:00:08.058Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/dnc-autopsy-takeaways-vis
- DNC Chairman Ken Martin released an incomplete Democratic autopsy report after initially refusing to publish it, following outcry from party members.
- The report says Democrats failed to set up Kamala Harris for success and ineffectively attacked Donald Trump during the campaign.
- It urges the party to move away from identity politics and spend resources earlier in election cycles to connect with voters.
AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
Ever since the 2024 election, Democrats have been searching for answers as to what went so wrong to possibly have re-installed Donald Trump as president.
And for much of that time, there’s been anticipation about an “autopsy” from the Democratic National Committee that drilled down on that precise question.
Except that autopsy never actually arrived. And eventually DNC Chairman Ken Martin said he wouldn’t release it.
But now Martin is reversing course and releasing an incomplete version of the document, after an outcry from some in the party.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Read the full autopsy obtained by CNN here. And read CNN’s report on how the autopsy was compiled here.
Martin told CNN that the report wasn’t close to being ready for public consumption, and that its lack of source material meant that recreating it would mean starting over. He said he didn’t want to release something like that or create a distraction, but he has now concluded he created a distraction by not releasing it.
“For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged,” Martin said. “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.”
Indeed, the document contains factual inaccuracies and is sometimes hard to follow, and there isn’t a coherent strategy laid out for the future so much as a series of disparate points of analysis.
A disclaimer atop the document notes that the report reflects the views of the author, Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, and not the DNC. Rivera, who people familiar with the matter say wrote the report as a part-time volunteer, declined to comment.
Here’s what the document shows.
Early in the report, it acknowledges that recent elections, including 2024, have been pretty close. And it acknowledges this might lead some Democrats to argue for changes around the edges rather than a wholesale re-thinking of the party’s approach.
But it rejects that more sanguine approach.
“This kind of thinking – denialist at its core – prevents the Party from seeking real accountability, and from making the changes we need to deliver on our promises to the American people,” the report says.
It says that since Barack Obama’s big 2008 win, the party has “vacillated between stagnation and retrogression.” And it notes that, on the whole, Democrats have steadily lost ground since Obama’s success.
“These losses are the direct result of missed opportunities to invest in our states, counties, and local parties and candidates,” the report says.
It says Democratic “candidates have proven incapable of projecting strength, unity, and leadership, and voters have drifted away.”
It even waves away any optimism coming from strong results in the 2025 elections, arguing that “some of these elections were tighter than Democrats should be comfortable with.”
And it says that when Democrats have won big races in recent years, the wins can often “be attributed to negative partisanship – where Republicans have nominated deeply flawed candidates.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris had to run a highly unusual campaign, in that she was thrust to the top of the ticket with just three and a half months to go before the election.
The autopsy says former President Joe Biden’s campaign and White House failed to set her up for success.
For instance, it says that ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, the White House asked the DNC to poll how first lady Jill Biden could best help her husband politically. But it did no such research about Harris.
It said failing to conduct that research, even while Harris as vice president was taking on difficult issues like immigration, “was a massive missed opportunity.”
“As a result, at the moment of the candidate switch the polling team discovered there was no self-research on the Vice President to guide the development of the research instruments,” the autopsy says.
But that wasn’t the only criticism of the Biden operation.
It also faulted the Biden White House for not more aggressively working to “contradict or correct” the right-wing labeling of Harris as Biden’s “border czar.” (Her task instead dealt with the root causes of migration from Central American countries.)
And the report suggests it failed to sufficiently drive messages about her.
“The national campaign did not effectively drive Trump’s negatives, and the White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three and half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch,” the autopsy says.
But when it came to defining Trump, there’s apparently blame to go around.
The autopsy says there was a broader failure to remind Americans why they disliked Trump in his first term.
“The idea Trump’s negatives were ‘baked in’ is a major failure of analysis and reality,” it says, “given how his favorability has cratered less than a year into this term.”
The report says Democrats didn’t match the “negative firepower” with which Trump managed to go after Harris, concluding that “it was essential to prosecute a more effective case as to why Trump should have been disqualified from ever again taking office.”
“The grounds were there, but the messaging did not make the case,” the report says.
It says Harris and her campaign took too much for granted
When it comes to more specific criticisms of the Harris campaign, there’s also plenty there.
Much of the report seems to point to assuming things and taking things for granted.
To wit:
- “Harris’s focus on college-educated suburbs left gaps with Democratic North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein at unwinnable levels.”
- “Harris lagged in rural areas nationally, which proved to be insurmountable in swing states. … Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate.”
- “The Harris campaign appears to have relied on Trump being unacceptable rather than building an affirmative case for Harris.”
And perhaps most significant, it said she couldn’t adequately define either herself or Trump.
“Harris struggled with definition beyond ‘not Trump’ and ‘prosecutor vs. felon,’” the report says. “The truncated campaign timeline didn’t help, but the campaign did not quickly resolve on how to tag Trump and define Harris.”
Perhaps no ad is more closely associated with the 2024 campaign than the Trump campaign’s anti-transgender spot, with the tagline of “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”
And the autopsy casts the ad – and Harris’ comments which it was based on – as an irreconcilable problem.
It said the campaign’s pollsters “all recognized the attack as very effective.”
“If the Vice President would not change her position – and she did not – then there was nothing which would have worked as a response,” the autopsy says.
The report then adds: “The pollsters generally concurred with the opinions shared by campaign leadership – given the stakes and timing, the focus needed to be on attacking Trump.”
Biden has claimed he still thinks he could have won the 2024 election.
But in a rare judgment about the decision to switch candidates, the autopsy suggests replacing him with Harris at least helped other Democrats win.
“Having Kamala Harris on the ballot actually helped down-ballot Democrats maintain part of their base support,” it says. “Had Biden remained on the ballot, down-ballot Democrats might have faced even steeper challenges.”
It suggests a shift away from identity politics and towards middle-class appeal
One phrase repeatedly gets mentioned derisively, and that’s “identity politics.”
It’s repeatedly cast as a crutch that Democrats need to move away from, in favor of kitchen-table issues like affordability and middle-class appeal.
The report says Stein’s huge win showed how to “focus less on abstract issues and identity politics, and connect with voters on the issues they say matter most, including the economy, disaster relief, and addressing housing affordability.”
It says Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada and now-Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona showed how “year-round presence, economic messaging, and addressing cost-of-living concerns resonate more than identity politics.”
It tells Democrats who want to win male voters to deploy male messengers and “don’t assume identity politics will hold male voters of color.”
And it casts Stein, Gallego and Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan all as candidates who were able to speak effectively to middle-class voters, rural voters, and/or Latino voter in ways other Democrats could not. It also greatly credits Rosen’s tireless political operation and her ties to Nevada’s all-important service industry.
The message seems to be: Find candidates who match their states or districts and have actual appeal to middle-class voters in their areas.
In addition to being sour on how Democrats are doing politically, it casts Republicans as just, well, better at this.
It paints the GOP as more successfully flooding the zone with its messaging and Democrats as too feeble and limited to fight back as hard.
“At times, it seems Democrats are trying to win arguments while Republicans are focused on winning elections,” the report says. “Democrats operate in an ecosystem defined by reason even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage.”
It repeatedly faults Democrats for not being “always on” and messaging harder.
“The difference is right-wing interests take a longer-term approach and amplify polarizing messaging and candidates within the Democratic family with the intention of ‘othering’ all Democrats,” the report says. “Without aggressive pushback and tactics, it works.”
And finally, it paints Republicans as better at learning the lessons of past campaigns – including one Democrats won.
“The GOP’s victory in 2024 largely came down to its ability to learn more from President Obama’s victory than Democrats did,” the report concludes. “The GOP’s campaign was powered by data, amplified by social media, and enabled by ardent supporters at every level.”
But there are few hard-and-fast solutions
If anyone is reading this report looking for any silver bullets for Democrats – or even just hard recommendations – they’re likely to come away disappointed.
The report is mostly summarizing what happened. It contains many judgements about why Democrats lost. But when it comes to solutions for making things better, it generally just suggests the party needs to re-think things and do certain things better – without necessarily detailing how.
Near the end of the 192-page report comes an instructive paragraph.
“Building to win requires new thinking, and building to last requires thinking about more than the next election,” the report says. “It requires finding the best way to connect with the right voters in the right places, and if 2024 has proven anything, there is enough money to do it all the right way.”
To Martin’s point about this document not being ready for primetime, it contains lots of errors and curious inclusions – even some that are puzzling to have in a draft.
For instance, it lists two separate vote percentages for North Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson – 45% and 42.7% – neither of which was his actual share (40.1%).
It at one point lifts up Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson as an example of a candidate who did the right things – before later noting that he actually under-performed Harris.
It misspells the names of politicians like Republican former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (“Brevin”) and Democratic former New Jersey Gov. Jon (“John”) Corzine.
Errors can happen, but it suggests the report to this point didn’t involve a super high level of care – which might impact how seriously people take its conclusions.
One pretty clear recommendation, though, is that Democrats need to spend their resources on a more constant basis and earlier in the cycle.
The autopsy noted that Democrats have managed to outraise Republicans pretty consistently in the highest-profile races, and that they shouldn’t be saving that money until the end of the campaign.
The report asked when Democratic candidates would “invest earlier in the campaign cycle, and between elections.”
It connects this to a theme of the report, which is that Democrats need to be “always on” – always preparing for the next campaign and messaging and building the things they need to win.
“We have enough money to think and act differently,” the report says. “Democrats must break with stale and counterproductive practices to Build to Win and Build to Last.”
The report is silent on some of the biggest and potentially juiciest aspects of the 2024 campaign.
That includes any judgment about Biden’s decision to run again, the impact of the war in Gaza (which split Democrats) and the fact that Harris was allowed to take over the ticket without anything amounting to an electoral process for choosing a replacement.
It also doesn’t weigh in on Harris’ failure to do an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, which many analysts have regarded as a major mistake.
Autopsies like this can be valuable in figuring out what happened.
But like the Republican Party’s 2012 autopsy, they can also be disregarded. That autopsy instructed the party to moderate on immigration in order to win Latino voters; Trump took very much the opposite approach in 2016 and won anyway.
And this new Democratic autopsy actually notes that Democrats conducted a review after the 2022 midterms but failed to follow through on it.
It says key DNC staff sought to isolate areas for improvement and wrote a report with seven findings and five recommendations.
“Unfortunately, none of these recommendations were implemented on the proposed timeline, if at all,” the report says.