The autopsy is finally here. Unfortunately for Democrats, it looks like the coroner forgot to examine the body.
After sitting on a much-hyped 192-page report dissecting the party’s disastrous 2024 election loss, Democratic leaders managed to accomplish something few thought possible: they released a postmortem that somehow avoided discussing many of the biggest reasons the patient ended up politically flatlining in the first place.
Even veteran Democratic strategist James Carville — a man who has spent decades carrying water for his party — sounded like a guy staring at a five-alarm dumpster fire while being handed a pamphlet on proper recycling techniques.
On his podcast with longtime political journalist Al Hunt, Carville and Hunt practically laughed at the idea that Democrats needed nearly 200 pages to explain a defeat that millions of Americans watched unfold in real time.
“The supposedly much awaited Democratic autopsy on 2024 came out. To call it a total dud would be to elevate it,” Hunt said.
“It avoided—it didn’t mention Biden’s age. It didn’t mention Gaza. It didn’t mention Kamala Harris’s campaign problems.” That’s quite a feat. Imagine writing a report on the Titanic without mentioning the iceberg.
Hunt boiled the election down to two simple conclusions that didn’t require a consultant’s report, a focus group, or a 192-page PowerPoint presentation.
Joe Biden stayed in the race too long. Kamala Harris was not a strong candidate. That’s it. That’s the mystery.
Carville agreed, but he focused on an even bigger question that should haunt Democratic operatives for years. Money. Lots and lots of money.
“If there’s one fact about the 2024 election that you need to autopsy above all, and it’s this: From Labor Day to election day, the Harris campaign had available and spent $2 billion. I don’t think we got a vote on election day that we weren’t going to get on Labor Day anyway. Why wouldn’t you want to know?” That’s not a typo. Two. Billion. Dollars.
Most campaigns would sell their souls for a fraction of that war chest. Yet according to Carville, Democrats managed to burn through an astonishing sum of cash and still ended up exactly where they started.
To be clear, Carville wasn’t alleging corruption or theft. His criticism was arguably worse. He was alleging incompetence.
“Clearly, this was the most ineffective $2 billion ever spent. How was it allocated? Why didn’t it do any good? Is there a way that we could have done it better? There has to be.”
That question should terrify Democratic donors. Political campaigns exist for one purpose: persuading voters. If $2 billion can’t move the needle, then maybe the problem wasn’t the advertising strategy, the consultants, the digital targeting, or the parade of celebrity endorsements. Maybe voters simply weren’t buying what Democrats were selling.
Carville then reached for an analogy that perfectly captures the absurdity of the party’s apparent desire to move on without asking hard questions.
“When an airplane crashes, the last thing anybody says, ‘Well, we just need to look ahead. We don’t need to look back.’ No, actually, you want to find out, was it the landing gear? Was it the air traffic control? Was it the weather? Was it terrorism? Was it ran out of gas? I don’t know. But the last thing you want to do is say, ‘Well, there’s nothing to see here, folks. Let’s go on.’ And it’s idiotic.”
The most revealing part of the entire saga isn’t that Republicans are criticizing the Democratic Party. That’s expected.
It’s that some of the loudest criticism is coming from Democrats themselves. When party veterans start openly mocking their own election autopsy, that’s not a warning sign. That’s the political equivalent of smoke pouring out of the engine while passengers argue over who forgot to check the fuel gauge.
The DNC wanted a postmortem. Instead, it delivered a case study in why voters stopped listening in the first place.
