WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee released its autopsy report on the 2024 election, a document that had been kept under wraps by DNC Chairman Ken Martin because of concerns it would fuel party infighting.
The somber assessment of the Democratic Party blamed Kamala Harris’ defeat on several factors, including the failure of President Joe Biden’s campaign to position the former vice president for success.
The DNC report also said the Harris campaign failed to attract the high numbers of irregular voters — disproportionately voters of color, younger, non-college educated, male and urban — that the party needed to win.
“Since the high point of the 2008 Obama landslide, when he received nearly 10 million more votes than John McCain, the Democratic Party has vacillated between stagnation and retrogression,” the report said. “In doing so, we have lost the confidence we once received from everyday Americans — and election results show it.”
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The report also said “in the sixteen tumultuous years since that historic election, Democrats have lost ground at every level of government,” creating “missed opportunities.”
There is no mention of any impact Gov. Tim Walz might have had on the race. Nor was there any reference to the effect the Democratic split over Israel’s war in Palestine might have had on the election results.
In a statement, Martin said he released the report reluctantly.
“For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged,” he 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.”
Martin, formerly the head of the state DFL Party, commissioned a comprehensive review of the 2024 election last year. But he said that when that report was turned in, “it wasn’t ready for prime time,” lacking source material, among other things. So he said fixing it would mean starting over from the beginning.
But Democrats had just come off a series of massive wins in last November’s off-year elections, and the midterms were about to kick off.
“In short, I didn’t want to create a distraction,” Martin said. “Ironically, in doing so, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. And for that, I sincerely apologize.”
Martin has also come under heat for weak DNC fundraising.
The Republican National Committee has amassed a significant fundraising lead this election cycle, raising $247 million, spending $161 million and banking away $123.9 million, according to campaign finance reports filed this week.
Meanwhile, the DNC has raised $189 million and spent almost $197 million through April, leaving it with about $14.4 million in cash reserves and $17.5 million in debt.
E15 bill fuels rift between corn and soybean farmers
A bill approved by the U.S. House that would promote greater use of ethanol has pitted corn producers against soybean farmers.
The reason for this conflict is complicated.
The legislation supported by every member of Minnesota’s delegation to the House would revise sections of the Clean Air Act to permit year-round sales of E15, a gasoline blend that contains up to 15% ethanol.
The legislation also would revise the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a federal policy that requires gasoline and other transportation fuels to contain minimum amounts of fuel from renewable resources.
That’s expected to boost demand and prices for corn.
The legislation would also prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from reallocating the mandates for production of a certain volume of renewable fuels from refineries that are exempted from those mandates.
That would result in a decline in demand for renewable fuels that are not ethanol and would disproportionately affect demand for biomass-based diesel, a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says.
And soybean oil is the largest feedstock of biomass-based diesel.
“A reduction in demand for biomass-based diesel would translate to a reduction in demand for soybeans and lower soybean prices,” the CBO report said.
Minnesota produces from 74 million to 85 million gallons of biodiesel a year. The state is also the first in the nation to approve a biodiesel mandate, requiring diesel sold during the warmer months to contain a 20% biodiesel blend.
The University of Missouri’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute also looked into the impact of the E15 bill. It determined that small gains in corn prices from year-round nationwide E15 gasoline would be more than offset by decreases in soybean prices.
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In a statement, the American Soybean Association said it fully supports national year-round E15 sales, which are allowed now with the approval of EPA waivers in Minnesota and 21 other states.
But the association also said the bill “would result in reduced net farm income and negative economic impacts for soybean growers and the broader agricultural economy.”
The CBO estimated the drop in soybean prices would cost the federal government $2.7 billion over 10 years in additional U.S. Department of Agriculture subsidy payments, mostly to soybean growers but also to other farmers whose crops are used to make biomass-based diesel.
Darin Johnson, president of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association, said the state’s corn and soybean farmers “try to work hand in hand.” And that might not be too difficult as many Minnesota farmers grow both crops.
But Johnson said the E15 bill approved by the U.S. House must be corrected in the U.S. Senate so that its changes to EPA small refinery regulations don’t negatively impact soybean growers.
“We want to make sure when it comes out of the Senate, it is good for both corn and soybeans,” Johnson said. “We need to get this bill fixed in the Senate.”
The bill was approved just as the EPA issued a final 2026 Renewal Volume Obligation (RVO), an annual mandate that dictates how much renewable fuel refiners and importers must blend into the U.S. transportation fuel supply. That RVO boosted biodiesel by 67%.
“From a biofuel perspective, we are in a really good spot,” Johnson said.
But if the E15 bill depresses demand for that biofuel, the RVO won’t help soybean farmers much.
The nation’s corn growers have their own assessment of the bill.
It determined corn prices would eventually rise about $0.15 per bushel and soybean prices would decrease by $0.48 per bushel. But it differed with the CBO in that it predicted USDA subsidies to soybean growers would be “more than offset” by lower subsidies to corn growers.
In other news:
▪️ Reporter Cleo Krejci wrote about an impending state law that would require parental consent and ban “addictive” features for users 15-years-old and younger on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and other social media platforms.
▪️ Greater Minnesota reporter Brian Arola detailed how comity and cooperation bested partisanship to bring together state lawmakers and win approval of a $1.2 billion infrastructure bill.
▪️ Data journalist Shadi Bushra also wrote about a bipartisan effort in the Legislature, this time to approve an affordable housing bill that some advocates say isn’t strong enough.
▪️ Meanwhile, state government reporter Matthew Blake has a wrapup of the Legislature’s major accomplishments, most concluded in the last hours of the session.
Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming to aradelat@minnpost.com. I’ll try my best to respond.
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