As if 2025 has not been brutal enough, the Democratic National Committee has publicly announced it will conduct an “autopsy” on its failed 2024 presidential campaign. But cagily, the DNC has decided to limit the discussion, punctiliously avoiding Harris-Walz campaign deficiencies and former President Joe Biden’s infirmities.
That’s like performing John F. Kennedy’s autopsy and only examining his feet. Just as athlete’s foot didn’t kill Kennedy, botched independent expenditures did not sink Kamala Harris.
It is laughable that the DNC thinks it can ring-fence any self-examination away from the fundamental problems facing Democrats. But just like the Democratic Party as a whole, the DNC is too dependent on soothing its squabbling factions and defending its sacred shibboleths to conduct any honest assessment.
So here is a free autopsy for the Democrats.
It all starts with Biden. The over-the-top hagiography spun by the media elites of Biden was always absurd. The fact is, Biden was only the Democrat just palatable enough for most voters in 2020. Tongue-tied for the last four decades and unmoored to principle, Biden’s most salient characteristic was his overweening ambition.
Then, intoxicated with power, the addled and aged Biden failed to leave when his time was up. That was clearly the Democrats’ most glaring issue in 2024.
Jake Tapper and the New York/Washington media elites might have been fooled by the White House, but the voters were not.
As early as January 2022, just one year after his inauguration, a majority of Democrats did not want Biden to run again, with only 32 percent saying the incumbent president should be on the 2024 ballot. And that poll was not the end of it. Between then and Biden’s ignominious departure roughly 30 months later, he faced an unrelenting stream of bad polls and bad news.
From 2022 onwards, when YouGov asked voters if Biden should run in 2024, the public fired back an overwhelming “No!” In their Sept. 19, 2022, benchmark, YouGov found 59 percent of voters rejecting a 2024 Biden run against a mere 19 percent in favor. An overwhelming 64 percent of independents were opposed, as well as majorities in all age and income demographics, men and women.
Month after month, majorities said they didn’t want Biden to run again. Even when Trump’s candidacy became more real and Democratic voters began to rally around Biden, his numbers remained weak. In January 2024, YouGov found voters opposed to Biden running at 58 percent — a number propped up by relatively supportive Democrats. Independents opposed Biden running again by a 55-point margin.
The MSNBC gang may have thought Biden was as sharp as ever, but the American public was not deceived. In that same January 2024 poll, 55 percent thought Biden’s age “severely” affected his ability to serve, including 59 percent of independents. Additionally, 73 percent of independents thought Biden was a very weak or somewhat weak leader.
So in short, the American public was practically screaming for Biden to quit. The signs were there the whole time.
Maybe Democrats could have still won without Biden, had they connected on issues the public cared about. But once again, they ignored voters.
Inflation was by far the top issue. In a September 2022 YouGov poll, inflation became the lead issue, with 20 percent of the public and 23 percent of independents naming it their top issue, nearly 10 points ahead of any other. By August 2024, inflation had become even bigger, with 24 percent naming it the top issue (26 percent of independents) and 96 percent of all voters calling it “very” or “somewhat” important — far above any other issue.
Biden, Harris and the Democrats did nothing but point fingers, and it didn’t work. In that same poll, Biden (and by extension, his vice president) had a minus-25 point net approval on his handling of inflation, with independents net-negative by 41 points.
Biden, Harris and the D.C. Democrats catered mostly to their own base. Front and center from a policy perspective were abortion and climate change — top issues for Democrats and liberals but not really for anybody else. In issue importance, abortion and climate change ran a mere 1 point behind inflation among Democratic voters, while for liberals climate change was the top issue and abortion tied with inflation. But for independents, abortion and climate change ran 18 points and 19 points behind inflation, respectively. And for Republicans, those issues weren’t even on the radar.
Inflation is a structural problem for the progressive left. They can’t get enough of it. Going back to the days of William Jennings Bryan, easy money has been a hallmark of leftist politics. Bryan was the Bernie Sanders of his day — charismatic, wildly popular with the left and a spectacular loser.
For Democrats, all the policy options to fight inflation were closed off by their hardcore liberal base. Prices will fall when you reduce fiscal stimulus and promote efficiency — that translates to lower spending and less regulation. Instead, Biden unleashed an avalanche of spending and a tsunami of rules and regulations.
This brings us to the most fundamental problem for the Democratic Party and its various squawking factions: They live in a world of illogic, delusion and denial. The public was telling them what they wanted for more than two years, but Biden, his political and media sycophants, and the D.C. Democrats ignored them.
The inability and unwillingness of Team Biden, the Democratic establishment and the New York-Washington media elites to appreciate voters’ antipathy toward a Biden reelection is a spectacular failure, bordering on pathological.
As long as Democrats only cater to their base — a base not at all in sync with the issue concerns of the majority — they will struggle to win. Building out a better social media infrastructure is pointless if you’re selling issues the public won’t buy. Having a “man” strategy won’t work if you only talk about abortion, climate change and privilege.
For the last nine years, the Democratic Party has been a mass of squabbling factions only unified in their hatred of Trump. They have at most two more elections (2026 and 2028) to run as the “not Trump” party. If they don’t get their act together, the 2029 autopsy might be their last.
Keith Naughton, a longtime Republican political consultant, is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.
