The Democratic Party in the United States has released its long-awaited report examining why former Vice President Kamala Harris failed to beat Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. But the so-called autopsy document, made public on Thursday, was incomplete and inconclusive – riddled with factual mistakes and annotations questioning its assertions.
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin acknowledged the report’s shortcomings on Thursday, but he said continuing to withhold it would have been a bigger distraction than releasing it in its current state. “I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards. I don’t endorse what’s in this report, or what’s left out of it,” Martin said.
The report contains zero mentions of Gaza and Israel. Leading up to the 2024 vote, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza was one of the most contentious issues for the Democrats and Harris. The Biden-Harris regime handed Israel nearly $18bn and vetoed several UN Security Council resolutions. Some polls suggested that the Gaza policy was one of the main reasons Harris lost the election.
Several sections – including the executive summary and conclusion – were entirely missing. The word “pending” with the annotation “this section was not provided by author” appeared in their place. The document also makes numerous questionable and false assertions, leading to annotations such as “claim contradicts public reporting” and “data appears to be inaccurate”.
According to the report, the DNC conducted polling ahead of the 2022 midterm elections to explore ways then-First Lady Jill Biden could support her husband, but no similar research was done for Harris. The document also appeared to fault the White House for assigning Harris immigration responsibilities without adequately training her.
The audit outlined a familiar criticism of the Harris campaign – that it failed to promote the Democratic candidate’s own vision and focused on the importance of defeating Trump instead. “Harris struggled with definition beyond ‘not Trump’ and ‘prosecutor vs. felon’,” the report read. But amid the affordability crisis gripping the country under a Democratic regime, “the obvious contrast with Trump was not a sufficient motivator” for voters.
Source: www.aljazeera.com