Democrats must be feeling less confident about 2026 than they were in December when the DNC decided to bury the report. California may be one reason why.

“This document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC. The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.”

The unwieldy disclaimer appears at the top of every single page of the DNC’s 2024 loss autopsy report.

All 192 of them.

It’s no wonder. The report has not been well-received by progressives. Part of the criticism stems from the fact that it was buried for five months and is only now being released to the public.

Ken Martin’s explanation for shelving the Democratic Party’s 2024 autopsy report in December was simple enough and he admits it openly: Democrats were winning again and Martin didn’t want to change the subject.

Democrats had just come off strong off-year elections. The 2026 midterm race was just beginning. The party did not need another circular firing squad over Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, consultants, donors, Gaza, inflation, men, Latinos, rural voters, or any of the other political landmines buried inside the 2024 wreckage.

So Martin put the report away.

Now he has taken it back out.

Why?

Why did he change his mind? And why now?

The official explanation is transparency. Martin now says the report was not ready for primetime in December 2025, lacked source material, and did not meet his standards. He says he did not want to create a distraction, then realized that hiding the report had created a bigger one. 

That may be true. 

But it is not the whole story. The report was reportedly prepared in late 2025 and released only after months of internal pressure, while Martin simultaneously disavowed its findings.

What changed?

In December, Martin believed releasing the report was more dangerous than burying it. By May, he clearly believed burying it was more dangerous than releasing it. That is a complete shift.

Why?

The California governor’s race may be one reason.

California is not supposed to be a hard state for Democrats. It is the crown jewel of blue America. Democrats dominate the statewide offices, the legislature, the culture, the donor class, and most of the institutional machinery. If there is one place where Democrats should be able to produce a clean, confident, well-organized race for governor, it is California.

Instead, the race has become an absolute mess.

Under California’s top-two primary system, the two highest vote-getters advance to November regardless of party. That creates a nightmare scenario when one party has a crowded, fractured field and the other party consolidates. Democrats have been worried enough about the system that a new push has emerged to repeal it amid fears that Republicans could exploit a chaotic governor’s race.

Then came Steve Hilton.

A Trump-backed Republican making a strong showing in deep-blue California is not necessarily proof that he will become governor. But it is absolutely the kind of thing that gets party professionals’ attention. The Guardian described the California race as unexpectedly turbulent, with Gavin Newsom term-limited, major Democrats declining to run, a crowded field, and Hilton in the mix as Democrats struggle to settle on a clear direction.

And then there was the Eric Swalwell debacle.

That is exactly the kind of live problem the autopsy report warned about: weak coordination, poor voter engagement, a damaged Democratic brand, and a party that assumes its voters will eventually come home because where else are they going to go?

Well, sometimes they stay home. Sometimes they drift. Sometimes they punish the party in primaries. Sometimes they vote for a Republican just to send a message. Sometimes a top-two system turns Democratic arrogance into a structural vulnerability.

California may not be the whole reason the DNC released the report now. But it fits the pattern.

The same is true of fundraising. Democrats may have a favorable national environment, but the DNC itself has looked financially since blowing through over a billion dollars in 2024.

The Washington Post reported in April that the DNC had scaled back plans as donors remained reluctant to give, despite Democratic victories. Axios reported that Martin’s handling of the autopsy fed a broader crisis of confidence in his leadership, including concerns about lackluster fundraising compared with Republicans.

The report’s own recommendations require money, an plenty of it: early organizing, voter registration, state party investment, better data, year-round campaigning, and rebuilding credibility in places Democrats have neglected.

You cannot ask donors to give early while refusing to show them the party’s own diagnosis of what went wrong.

Then there is redistricting. Democrats can overperform in special elections and still run into ugly math. Democrats are aggressively trying to redraw House maps before the midterms and Republicans are responding in kind.

So Democrats may be optimistic, but they are far from confident.

Trump’s approval is weak. Democrats have had good special-election results. The midterm environment may favor them. But a favorable wind does not fix a broken machine. It does not fix a scattered California field. It does not erase a fundraising gap. It does not stop redistricting losses. It does not repair trust with men, Latinos, rural voters, working-class voters, or young voters who no longer see the Democratic Party as automatically on their side.

That is why the report came out now.

Not because Democrats think they are doomed. Because they see a winnable election cycle and are suddenly less certain their party machinery is strong enough to take advantage of it.

In December, Martin could say: we are winning, so let’s move forward.

By May, the better question became: If we are winning, why does the party still look this shaky?

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)