Former Vice President Kamala Harris did not lose the U.S. presidential election in 2024 because she supported the Jewish state, according to Brian Romick, CEO and president of Democratic Majority for Israel.
Romick spoke with JNS after the Democratic National Committee released a 192-page “autopsy” report of the 2024 presidential election, which doesn’t address Israel or Gaza, or even the Middle East more generally.
The report concludes, in part, that the “national campaign did not effectively drive Trump’s negatives, and the White House did not effectively support Vice President Harris over three-and-a-half years to improve her standing before the candidate switch.”
“Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban-suburban margins would compensate,” it adds.
“We need to learn the lessons of 2024, so we can be successful in 2026, 2028 and beyond,” Romick told JNS.
“What is clear, autopsy or not, is that a majority of Americans, including Democrats, support the U.S.-Israel relationship,” he said. “That support was not the reason Vice President Harris lost the election.”
“We will continue to support pro-Israel Democrats and help us form a durable coalition that can govern,” he added.
Ken Martin, who chairs the Democratic National Committee, stated that the report didn’t meet his standards and that he cannot “put the DNC’s stamp of approval on it.” He stated that it needed to be released anyway to be transparent.
The beginning of the report states that it “reflects the views of the author, not the DNC” and that the committee 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.”
Sam Markstein, national political director at the Republican Jewish Coalition, told JNS that “the Democrats are tearing themselves apart as they appease the ascendant far-left extremists in their party, from Maine to Pennsylvania.”
“It’s bad policy, and it’s bad politics,” Markstein said. “The GOP is the only party where it’s safe to be proudly Jewish and pro-Israel. This was evident at the 2024 Republican National Convention, where Jewish voices were elevated, versus the Democratic Convention, which was a fiasco.”
“Republicans are righteously taking on the tough fights and winning,” he told JNS, “while Democrats continue to whistle past the political graveyard.”
