Autopsies are inherently messy – but any coroner would lose his license if it left as much blood on the walls as the DNC election report for the 2024 election.
The process was chaotic from the start: a report that was commissioned, left unfinished and kept under wraps by party leadership – until CNN reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere made it public and it was suddenly released into the world, covered in red notes. These comments sometimes distanced themselves from the sloppy product, sometimes they apologized for it. This mix of defensiveness and knee-jerk acquiescence is a perfect encapsulation of the problems facing the Democratic Party.
This is a shameful sloppiness because there is a real need for data-driven analysis of what went wrong in 2024. Democrats are facing the uncomfortable fact that the party lost an election to a disinhibited felon — and two years later, its approval rating is still lower than Donald Trump’s. This despite the fact that the president himself is in free fall: rising costs of living, unprecedented corruption, a chaotic government apparatus, an unpopular war abroad and daily attacks on the Constitution.
The damage is deep
The damage to the Democrats’ image is serious and must be addressed. But the impulse to deny is strong—partly because an honest inventory might hurt someone somewhere, and partly because Democrats appear to be benefiting from the pendulum swing of politics in the midterms.
These expected gains will provide the Republic with the checks and balances it needs to survive Trump’s deformation of American democracy. But they will not be enough to break the fever in our polarized politics.
Especially given the erosion of the Voting Rights Act in the South and demographic shifts from blue to red states, Democrats need to rebuild their big tent and win back swing voters in swing states they have lost for decades. And that’s not all: They also need a new generation of Democrats from rural areas and red states. To do so, they must abandon the self-righteous ideological purity tests that dominate online debates and get back to the business of persuading beyond their own base.
Josh Stein’s lesson
In one of the few useful sections of the half-baked election report, the anonymous author analyzes ticket splitting in the crucial swing state of North Carolina, where now-governor Josh Stein beat Kamala Harris’ result by a solid 8.5 percentage points.
Of course, it helped that Republican opponent Mark Robinson described himself as a “Black Nazi” with a penchant for online pornography that rivaled his affection for Trump. But the report argues that Stein’s strength has been “to focus less on abstract issues and identity politics and instead engage with voters on the issues they say they care about most: the economy, disaster relief and housing affordability.”
This sentence deserves a closer look – it is the only place in the report where the term “identity politics” is mentioned. That’s once more than the report mentions Gaza or Joe Biden’s age.
The hard numbers
Blue Rose Research has published some of the most honest and uncomfortable analyzes of democratic problems to date (and should be commissioned to rewrite this report). One of their most damning statistical findings—explained in a must-read conversation between Blue Rose analyst David Shorr and New York Times columnist Ezra Klein—is that Democrats have lost ground among young voters and in communities of color. Hispanic moderates swung away from Democrats by 23 points between 2016 and 2024. Moderate Asian American voters turned away at 11 percent during the same period. Although Trump announced mass deportations, he actually won the votes of naturalized immigrants. A fixation on identity politics misses its stated goal. As a leading Democrat from the Obama White House once told me, “We address voters as members of groups – but people don’t vote as a group, they vote as individuals.”
As the report explains, “millions of Americans are suffering from lack of access to health care, loss of industrial jobs, and crumbling infrastructure—yet they continue to be persuaded to vote against their own interests because they do not see themselves in Democratic Party America.”
Unless Democrats address the hard truths of why so many people don’t see themselves in their image of America, they will continue to fail.
Wrong priorities
This alienation is exacerbated by a fundamental problem: Democrats score highest on issues voters say they care least about — LGBTQ politics, climate change, abortion, child care and student debt. Republicans, on the other hand, are considered strong on the cost of living, inflation, crime, taxes, national security and border protection.
All of these issues are important – but there is a hierarchy of needs in people’s lives. And Republicans have the better image when it comes to regulating the basics that govern most Americans’ everyday lives – with the exception of health care. The lesson for Democrats is: If you can’t do the big things, the little things are of no use.
The next Democratic Congress and the next Democratic president will need a relentless focus on actually getting things done — proving that government can work again for working people and deliver results they feel in their own lives.
Break up the consultant cartel
Ensuring people notice results is not just a communication problem – but it requires breaking up the industrial consultant cartel. On page 40, the report points out the absurdity of the fundraising hamster wheel that pumps donations into advertising buys on broadcast and cable television: “In today’s media ecosystem, Republicans own while Democrats rent,” it says. “Democrats pay for seasonal access to networks, channels, platforms and newspapers owned by Republicans or right-wing actors to advertise and communicate with voters. … Essentially, Democrats are funding right-wing media to acquire more real estate and expand their ability to spread partisan perspectives.”
That’s correct. Democrats need to build their own long-term infrastructure for influence rather than reflexively relying on broad cable TV spots and direct mail. Far more effective would be to identify and target persuasive voters where they live – on their smartphones, on YouTube and on social networks – to reach the right people with the right message at the right time. Instead, the analogous principle of “spray and pray” still prevails today because consultants collect ten percent of the purchasing volume. This is an area ripe for disruption.
To reclaim America’s middle, Democrats must focus on rebuilding the middle class and the political center. They must exude strength, claim patriotism and leave identity politics behind in favor of affordability and economics. Instead of defending a broken status quo, Democrats must become the party of change and reform – modernizing government so hardworking Americans can advance and making good on the promise to put the national interest above all special interests.
