Gaza war and Israel go unmentioned in Democrats’ 2024 election autopsy report

Although report released to CNN is unfinished, Democratic Majority for Israel president says omission proves most Americans, including Democrats, support US-Israel ties

Gaza and Israel go unmentioned in the Democrats’ 190-page autopsy of Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential election loss that the Democratic National Committee released to CNN on Thursday.

Critics of the Biden administration’s support for Israel during the war in Gaza that began with the Hamas-led Oct 7, 2023, massacre have alleged that the party was suppressing its internal findings about the election, which returned President Donald Trump to office, because it would show that Biden’s stance was deeply unpopular.

Axios reported in February that the top Democrats who worked on the report concluded that Harris “lost significant support because of the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza.”

If that’s the case, it’s not reflected in the document that CNN published on Thursday morning. Portions of the document were not included; however, with notes saying that the executive summary and conclusion had not been shared by the authors.

The report points to 10 different “strategic implications” for Democrats, including that “anti-Trump sentiment has limits,” male voters “require direct engagement,” and that voter demographics are not enough to determine which candidate they’ll prefer.

CNN reported that the document was written by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera and annotated by the DNC. The DNC released the document following questions raised by CNN, the network reported.

DNC Chairman Ken Martin told CNN that the report was not yet ready to be publicly released, but concluded that withholding it would create a larger distraction than releasing an incomplete version. “I sincerely apologize,” he said.

“For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged,” Martin said. “It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”

Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said she’d expected to see analysis related to Gaza and Israel in the report.

“As soon as it arrived in my inbox I immediately searched for the word ‘Gaza’ expecting there to be an entire section focused on this issue,” Soifer said in an interview. “So I was surprised that, in fact, there was nothing — on Gaza, Israel, Jewish voters, non-Jewish voters, it was just nothing.”

Though rumors had swirled about the role that Gaza played in the autopsy, Soifer said she heard from a DNC official that there was “never” a section focusing on the issue, “at least not in writing in this report.”

Meanwhile, the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a pro-Palestinian nonprofit, called on Martin to release “the information that the author of the autopsy told us clearly and unambiguously, which is that DNC officials’ review of their own data found Biden’s support to be a net-negative for Democrats in 2024.”

Rivera, the report’s author, met with the IMEU and told them that the war in Gaza hurt Democrats in the 2024 election, according to reporting by Axios.

Soifer said the JDCA was not contacted by Rivera and did not meet with him.

While Soifer was surprised by the report’s omission of Gaza and Israel, pro-Israel lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel took it as a sign that support for Israel does not have a detrimental effect on Democrats’ chances in elections.

“We need to learn the lessons of 2024 so we can be successful in 2026, 2028 and beyond,” said Brian Romick, DMFI’s president.

“What is clear — autopsy or not — is a majority of Americans, including Democrats, support the US-Israel relationship, and that support was not the reason Vice President Harris lost the election,” he said. A DMFI staffer pointed to polling from last fall showing that a majority of Democrats support the US-Israel relationship.

A spokesperson for the Republican Jewish Coalition pointed to the episode as an example of infighting among Democrats.

“The Democrats are tearing themselves apart as they appease the ascendant far-left extremists in their party, from Maine to Pennsylvania,” wrote Sam Markstein, alluding to candidates Graham Platner and Chris Rabb.

“It’s bad policy and it’s bad politics. The GOP is the only party where it’s safe to be proudly Jewish and pro-Israel,” Markstein wrote. “Republicans are righteously taking on the tough fights and winning, while Democrats continue to whistle past the political graveyard.”

Harris was boxed in

The report found that the Biden White House did not “position or prepare the vice president” in a way that would allow her to lead a successful campaign.

It wasn’t until Biden announced his departure from the race in July that the campaign’s polling team scrambled to get fresh public opinion on three key areas — “one on the Vice President’s biography and record, one on her vision and plan, and another on attacks and responses.”

The team also determined Harris had no answer on a sensitive issue: The Trump campaign’s anti-transgender attacks. Specifically, the report highlighted the pollsters’ belief that the Democratic nominee was “boxed” in by Republicans’ “very effective” advertisement highlighting Harris’ previous support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgeries for prison inmates.

“Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” the ad said.

The report said: “If the Vice President would not change her position — and she did not — then there was nothing which would have worked as a response.”

Trump wasn’t attacked enough

There’s been no shortage of criticism toward Harris’ campaign after her defeat. Some Democrats think she spent too much time campaigning with Republicans like Liz Cheney; others think she lacked a strong economic message.

The autopsy report reaches a different conclusion, saying not enough was done to convince voters that Trump was an unacceptable candidate.

“There was a decision in the 2024 Democratic leadership not to engage in negative advertising at the scale required,” the report states. “The Trump campaign and supportive Super PACs went full throttle against Vice President Harris, but there was not sufficient or similar negative firepower directed at Trump by Democrats.”

At another point, the report says, “Democrats made a mistake by assuming voters were already aware of Trump’s various weaknesses.

“The idea Trump’s negatives were ‘baked in’ is a major failure of analysis and reality,” the report says.

DNC leadership did not appear to like these conclusions, adding annotations like “no evidence provided; contradicts claims elsewhere in report” and “no sourcing or evidence provided.”

To court rural voters: ‘Show up, listen, and then do it again’

The report criticized Harris’ outreach to key segments of America while including a handful of derisive references to “identity politics.” The document raises serious concerns about Latinos in particular.

“Democrats can no longer assume Latino voters, especially younger Latino men, are a reliable part of their base,” the report says. “The party needs a complete rethink of its Latino outreach strategy, moving beyond traditional approaches like Spanish-language ads and late-cycle surrogates.”

The report points to successful Democratic statewide candidates in Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina, who showed that “economic messaging, and addressing cost-of-living concerns resonate more than identity politics.”

The autopsy also highlighted the Democrats’ underperformance with men.

“Male voters require direct engagement. The gender gap can be narrowed,” the report says. “Deploy male messengers, address economic concerns, and don’t assume identity politics will hold male voters of color.”

Harris also didn’t have any answers for the party’s struggle with rural voters.

“Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate. The math doesn’t work,” the report says. “You can’t lose rural areas by overwhelming margins and make it up elsewhere when rural voters are a significant share of the electorate. If Democrats are to reclaim leadership in the Heartland or the South, candidates must perform well in rural turf. Show up, listen, and then do it again.”