<p>The author of the Democratic National Committee's 2024 election "autopsy" confirmed <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/02/22/dnc-2024-autopsy-harris-gaza" target="_blank">an Axios report</a> that he concluded the war in Gaza hurt Kamala Harris politically — and that he'd privately shared that assessment with a pro-Palestinian group.</p><ul><li>He said he drafted that finding late last year but never submitted it to party leadership.</li></ul><p><strong>Why it matters:</strong> Democrats have spent months debating whether the Biden administration's support for Israel during its war on Hamas contributed to Harris' defeat.</p><hr><ul><li>Moderates disputed its electoral significance, while progressives argued that the toll of Israel's war on Gaza civilians drained support from young people, liberals and Arab Americans.</li></ul><p><strong>Zoom in:</strong> Paul Rivera, who wrote the DNC autopsy, told Axios in an interview that<strong> </strong>his review of the 2024 election found the war in Gaza cost Harris votes, particularly in Michigan communities with large Arab American populations, such as Dearborn.</p><ul><li>Rivera, who no longer advises the DNC, this week published his own <a href="https://blueby2032.com/" target="_blank">564-page report</a> of the 2024 election, which examines the electoral impact of the war in Gaza, among <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/us/politics/democrats-autopsy-2024-election-dnc.html" target="_blank">other topics</a>.</li><li>When the DNC released its autopsy earlier this year, some Democrats criticized it for omitting any discussion of the war in Gaza.</li><li>In his new document, Rivera concludes that Harris lost tens of thousands of votes in Michigan amid backlash from the Israel-Hamas war, particularly in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck, where Green Party support surged as activists organized against the Democratic ticket.</li><li>He contends these losses accounted for a meaningful share of the state's shift toward President Trump, but was only one of several factors behind Harris' defeat in the state.</li></ul><p><strong>Rivera wrote </strong>that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the fallout from it in the U.S. is a "complex situation." But, he added, the "political analysis is simple — the electoral results and voting shifts in Michigan and elsewhere demonstrate the impact the crisis had on the Harris campaign."</p><ul><li>Rivera included in his new report <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-arab-americans-michigan-dearborn-aea96b9161a77de1fa47d668e23edb98" target="_blank">an AP photo</a> of a person holding literature distributed in Michigan in 2024. It read, "Do Not Vote Trump. Do Not Vote Harris. Do Not Vote Genocide."</li><li>He called it "a warning and a reminder of the stakes for Democrats moving forward."</li><li>At the same time, he acknowledged that Jewish Americans have faced increasing antisemitism in the U.S. Rivera praised Ken Martin, the DNC's embattled chair, for convening <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/04/06/2026/democratic-party-faces-its-internal-demons-on-us-israel-policy-again" target="_blank">a working group</a> on the Middle East.</li></ul><p><strong>The other side: </strong>Many moderate Democrats, including those who support Israel, say Gaza's impact on the 2024 election has been overblown.</p><ul><li>They point to <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/652970/economy-immigration-abortion-democracy-driving-voters.aspx" target="_blank">surveys</a> indicating the topic is not among many voters' top concerns.</li><li>Separate from this issue, Rivera has come under fire from Democrats across the ideological spectrum for what they view more broadly as a botched autopsy.</li><li>Rivera told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/us/politics/democrats-autopsy-2024-election-dnc.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a> in a story published this week that he submitted a chapter on other topics that the DNC did not include in its publicly released autopsy.<strong> </strong>The DNC denied that it was given the chapter.</li><li>The chapter Rivera claimed he shared with the DNC only briefly mentions the Israel-Palestine conflict, listing it alongside events such as 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis and Hurricane Katrina as occurrences that "have shaped electoral outcomes."</li></ul><p><strong>Flashback: </strong>Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/02/22/dnc-2024-autopsy-harris-gaza" target="_blank">reported</a> in February that officials working on the autopsy, which was secret then, had determined that the war in Gaza had eroded support for Harris among some voters — and had told the pro-Palestinian group IMEU Policy Project that in a private meeting.</p>