Democratic members of Congress are openly calling for the resignation of Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin after the party's long-delayed 2024 election autopsy landed with a thud on Thursday, painting a picture of an organization that has drifted for more than a decade and still cannot explain what it stands for beyond opposing one man.
The nearly 200-page report, written by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera, whom Martin himself hand-picked for the job, found that the party has "vacillated between stagnation and retrogression" since Barack Obama's 2008 victory. It faults both the Biden White House and the Harris campaign for failing to define their candidate as anything more than "not Trump."
That finding alone would sting. But the real accelerant was Martin's own handling of the document. The DNC first received the report last fall. Martin chose to sit on it for months, as Breitbart reported, saying he did not want to create a distraction from Democratic wins in November. When he finally released it Thursday, he did so with a letter that amounted to a public disavowal of his own party's self-examination.
In a letter published alongside the autopsy, Martin made the unusual move of distancing himself from the very document he had ordered produced. He wrote:
"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. I could not in good faith put the DNC's stamp of approval on it."
He then added that "transparency is paramount" and said he was releasing the report "as I received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged, with annotations for claims that couldn't be verified."
Read that again. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee commissioned a report, chose the author, received the finished product months ago, hid it from the public, and then released it with a disclaimer saying he doesn't stand behind it. That sequence speaks for itself.
The reaction from elected Democrats was swift. Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts told Axios flatly: "He should resign." Moulton cited Martin's "lack of leadership" and called it "utterly nuts it took us this long to release the autopsy."
Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, responding to a radio caller who argued Martin should be replaced, agreed on air. "I agree," Pocan said. "Having what we have right now is not doing it."
Rep. Marc Veasey of Texas went further in an interview with a news outlet, saying "there doesn't seem to be a plan to turn things around and the clock is ticking." He added: "I believe it's time for him to move on."
These are not backbenchers looking for cable news hits. They are sitting members of Congress from three different states, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Texas, publicly breaking with their own party chairman. The breadth of that dissent matters. It is not a regional complaint or an ideological faction. It is a cross-section of the Democratic House caucus saying the same thing: the man at the top is not up to the job.
The pattern of Democrats distancing themselves from their own leaders has become a recurring feature of the party's post-2024 landscape. What was once whispered is now said on the record.
The criticism extended well beyond Capitol Hill. Dan Pfeiffer, a former top adviser to President Obama and a prominent political commentator, said Martin is "not the right person to lead the DNC at this time," as reported by The Washington Post.
Danielle Butterfield, executive director of the progressive super PAC Priorities USA, told The Washington Post that Martin is "preventing us from moving forward." She added a pointed observation about the entire spectacle.
"It's pretty damning that instead of actually talking about the substance of the report, we're just talking about whether or not Ken Martin should resign."
That line captures the deeper problem. The autopsy was supposed to force an honest reckoning with why voters rejected Kamala Harris and other Democrats in 2024. Instead, Martin's bungled rollout turned the conversation into a personnel fight, letting the party dodge the very substance it was supposed to confront.
Meanwhile, Axios reported that the DNC's anemic fundraising numbers compared to its GOP counterpart have added to frustration with Martin's leadership. The financial picture compounds the strategic one: a party that cannot raise money and cannot articulate a message beyond opposing the other side is a party in serious institutional trouble.
Perhaps the sharpest critique came from outside the political consultant class entirely. John Morgan, described as a mega Democrat donor, told Fox News in a Thursday night interview that the party's policies were "sure losers." Morgan pointed to issues the 192-page autopsy fails to mention: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, what he called "woke" culture, open borders, and men competing against women in sports.
Morgan's complaint cuts to the heart of a question the DNC report apparently sidesteps. The autopsy faults Democrats for not making a strong enough case against the former president in 2024. But it does not appear to grapple with the possibility that voters were not simply insufficiently persuaded, they were actively repelled by specific Democratic positions on cultural and immigration issues.
That blind spot is telling. Sen. John Fetterman has made similar arguments from inside the party, calling out what he sees as an anti-Trump fixation that has replaced any coherent governing vision. When a mega-donor and a sitting senator are saying the same thing, and the party's own autopsy still won't say it, the diagnosis is worse than the report lets on.
The DNC's 2024 autopsy was modeled, at least in concept, on the Republican National Committee's famous 2012 post-mortem after Mitt Romney's loss. That earlier effort, whatever its flaws, was released promptly and engaged directly with the party's weaknesses. The DNC version took months to surface, arrived with a disclaimer from the chairman, and apparently avoids the cultural and policy questions that most obviously explain the party's losses.
Martin's letter said he released the report unedited and unabridged. But his simultaneous refusal to endorse it raises an obvious question: if the report is so flawed, why did Martin select the strategist who wrote it? And if Martin believes the report left things out, what stopped him from commissioning a supplement or addendum in the months he had it locked away?
The broader fractures within the Democratic coalition are playing out on multiple fronts. Senate Democrats have broken ranks on key votes, and the party's internal divisions show no sign of narrowing as the 2026 midterms approach.
Those midterms loom large. The Cook Political Report has shifted several Senate races in Democrats' direction, but the GOP still holds the structural advantage. A party that cannot agree on its own chairman, let alone its own message, will struggle to capitalize on whatever openings the map provides.
Rep. Veasey's warning, "the clock is ticking", is the line that should haunt Democratic strategists most. The autopsy was supposed to be the starting gun for rebuilding. Instead, it became another exhibit of institutional paralysis: a report buried for months, released under protest, disowned by the man who ordered it, and now overshadowed by the fight over his job.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. The Democratic Party faces recurring controversies from its own candidates that complicate any effort to project discipline or competence. The brand problem the autopsy was supposed to diagnose is being demonstrated in real time by the autopsy's own release.
Ken Martin picked the author, received the report, hid the report, released the report, and then told his party not to trust it. Three House members from three different states now say he should go. A former Obama adviser agrees. The head of a major progressive super PAC says he is blocking progress. A major donor says the whole document ducked the real issues.
When the doctor refuses to read the X-ray out loud, patients start looking for a new doctor. The Democrats' problem is that the disease was there long before the film was developed, and changing the radiologist won't cure it.