More than four months after Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin announced that he was breaking his promise to release its autopsy report on the 2024 election, the decision remains highly controversial. Arguments swirl around whether it’s wise to proceed without public scrutiny of what went wrong during the last presidential campaign. But scant attention has focused on how hiding the autopsy provides an assist to Kamala Harris, who currently leads in polling of Democrats for the party’s 2028 nomination.
As Harris eyes another run, she has a major stake in the DNC continuing to keep the autopsy under wraps – and has a lot to lose if it reaches the light of day. She must feel gratified when Martin defends keeping the autopsy secret, saying that the party should not “relitigate” the 2024 election and claiming that release of the 200-page document would result in “navel-gazing.”
Release of the entire autopsy would likely be a blow to Harris’s chances of becoming president in January 2029. Partly based on interviews with more than 300 prominent Democrats and others in all 50 states, it reportedly concludes that Harris’s unwavering support for U.S. weapons shipments to Israel was a significant factor in her loss to Donald Trump.
While she pursued an unsuccessful strategy of wooing scarce “moderate” Republican voters, many in the Democratic base were repelled by the full backing that Harris gave to President Biden’s massive arming of Israel as civilian deaths mounted in Gaza. She adhered to Biden’s admonition that there be “no daylight” between the two of them as she campaigned for president after he withdrew from the race.
At the time, polls showed that Harris was harming her election prospects by refusing to distance herself from Biden’s policy toward Israel. She evades that reality in her post-election book 107 Days, which dismisses antiwar protesters at her rallies as mere “hecklers.”
Harris’s protracted book tour has been beset by disruptions as well as her inability to provide cogent responses.
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I mean we all just saw it happen in 2024 when 4% of primary voters specifically voiced that they don't want anyone who is on the ballot, media covered it, polls reinforced it, donors pushed for it, and Biden dropped out. Kamala and Waltz seemed like they might have got the memo, but then the strategists came in and ruined it and she let them. Have we ever had a primary with more voters than that writing in or leaving it blank? I'm not aware if we have.
Do you mean every one of those 4% of primary voters? I'm guessing most of them probably did vote for Kamala. I think the people who didn't vote because of Gaza also didn't vote in the primary at all because it was Biden with no serious challengers. It's the non-voters I'm addressing here. I'm convinced that if all the left-leaning non-voters who opposed Biden because of Gaza had gone and voted "Uncommitted" in the primary, the DNC strategists would have run a different campaign.
That is clearly the strategy taken by just about every campaign from both major parties in regards to non-voters. Someone who doesn't vote isn't likely a gainable vote, so why spend the resources? Casting a ballot in the Democratic primary shows that you're a gainable vote. I think if that percentage of voting for none of the above goes up appreciably, the campaigns would at least do some canvasing/polling to see what issues are important. They might not adopt it, but it's at least an incremental improvement over completely ignore the people who don't vote.
I misunderstood what you were saying. Yeah I believe you could be right about this. I'm on board with your analysis now.
That's a false assumption. They don't vote unless they see a point in voting. People turn out when they think it'll make a difference, not to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
That is the reality as stated from the perspective of the non-voter, yes. But it's clearly not from the perspective of the campaign strategists. Is there any provision in your state election laws that a minimum percentage of eligible voters must cast a vote for a winner to be declared? Beto O'Rourke's 2018 campaign for Senate was considered quite unique for simply going out to every county and talk to everyone where there are. But we haven't really seen nominees since then repeating it. We've instead seen more of the same, winners declaring they have a mandate from the people after winning with less than a quarter of the eligible voting population having voted for them. They don't care why you didn't vote. But they sure started to care why that 4% voted for Uncommitted.