Paul Rivera, who authored an internal Democratic National Committee report on the party’s 2024 presidential election loss, has asserted that an entire chapter was excluded from the version released to the public earlier in the summer. Rivera told the New York Times that a section titled “What Happened in 2024” had been included in the draft he delivered to DNC Chairman Ken Martin in January but did not appear in the published version.
The missing chapter reportedly contained discussions about President Joe Biden’s decision to seek re-election and raised questions about Democratic operatives who had accumulated substantial wealth through political work. While the section did not identify specific individuals, Rivera wrote that Democrats advocating for change “keep banging their heads up against a system proven to be inflexible and self-enriching.” Rivera expressed uncertainty about whether the omission was deliberate, telling the Times that party leadership “had it, and they made a decision not to release it.”
Martin countered Rivera’s account in a statement, saying the alleged report section “was not in any binder I reviewed” and asserting that had it been present, the party would have released it alongside the rest of the report. Martin also stated he had campaigned for his chairmanship “to hold the consultant-industrial complex accountable” and would have disclosed any chapter critical of self-enriching consultants.
The report, released in May, drew criticism for failing to adequately explain why the Democratic party and its presidential candidates, first Biden and later Vice President Kamala Harris, lost to Donald Trump. The missing chapter, according to Rivera’s account, suggested that Democratic success in prior contests had led leadership to overestimate party strength and that Biden’s re-election decision came despite signals of voter dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Rivera’s public disclosure comes as the party faces financial challenges heading into the midterm elections in November and the 2028 presidential election, with Democrats reporting a $2 million cash deficit compared to the Republican party’s $128 million positive balance. Rivera characterized his decision to release the disputed analysis alongside his broader 564-page election review as motivated by “a place of hope and, honestly, a little bit of desperation” and his belief that “we need some disruption here to force change.”
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