ATLANTA (AP) — Democrats will not issue a postelection report on their 2024 shellacking after all.
The Democratic National Committee head has decided not to publish a formal assessment of the party’s defeat that returned Donald Trump to power and gave Republicans complete control in Washington.
Ken Martin, a Minnesota party leader who was elected national chair after Trump’s election, ordered a thorough review of what went wrong and what could be done differently, with the intent they would circulate a report as Republicans did after their 2012 election performance. Martin now says the inquiry, which included hundreds of interviews, was complete but that there is no value in a public release of findings that he believes could lead to continued infighting and recriminations before the 2026 midterms when control of Congress will be at stake.
“Does this help us win?” Martin said in a statement Thursday. “If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”
Martin's decision, first reported by The New York Times, spares top Democrats from more scrutiny about their campaigns, including former President Joe Biden, who withdrew from the race after announcing his second-term run, and his vice president, Kamala Harris, who became the nominee and lost to Trump.
Keeping the report under wraps also means Martin does not have to take sides in the tug-of-war between moderates and progressives or make assessments about how candidates should handle issues that Trump capitalized on, such as transgender rights.
“We are winning again,” Martin said.
Martin's announcement follows a successful string of 2025 races, both in special elections and off-year statewide votes, that suggest strong enthusiasm for Democratic candidates.
In November, Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively. In New York's mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, defeated establishment Democrat-turned-independent Andrew Cuomo.
In U.S. House special elections throughout 2025, Democratic nominees have consistently outperformed the party's 2024 showing, often by double-digit percentages. Democrats have flipped state legislative districts and some statewide seats around the country, even in Republican-leaning places.
Although the DNC's report will not be made public, a committee aide said some conclusions will be integrated into the party's 2026 plans.
For example, the findings reflect a consensus that Democratic candidates did not adequately address voter concerns on public safety and immigration, two topics that Trump hammered in his comeback campaign, and that Democrats did not spend their money wisely despite outraising Republicans on the whole. They also found that Democrats must overhaul their digital outreach, especially to younger voters, a group where Trump saw key gains over Harris compared with previous elections.
FILE - DNC chair candidate Ken Martin speaks at the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting in National Harbor, Md., Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File)
GLOUCESTER, England (AP) — Waiting in the wings on opening night of “Beauty and the Beast,” Michael Edwards felt the nerve-wracking jitters he experienced four decades earlier staring through thick glasses down a perilously steep ski jump.
The athlete-turned-performer better known as “Eddie the Eagle” was no stranger to fear, but this was different: he was about to face a theater packed with children.
In ski jumping, he might break his neck; here he only risked tripping over his lines and failing to win laughs.
Edwards has added acting to the bustling business of being Eddie the Eagle, feathering his nest and stretching his celebrity far longer than his brief flight as Britain’s first Olympic ski jumper won him fame despite finishing last in the 1988 Calgary Games.
There is almost nothing he hasn't done since he entered the spotlight. He has recorded songs, danced on ice, dressed twice as a chicken (eagle suits are scarce), been interviewed in an Amsterdam brothel, filmed car and spectacle commercials, and spoken for hours at a time about what he knows best: how he landed here.
“I’m always very, very grateful that I got christened Eddie The Eagle and it’s amazing that I’m talking about it 38 years later,” he told The Associated Press. “I’m hoping that I encourage other people to get out there, get off their bum and go for their dream.”
It didn't appear early on that Edwards was headed for fame.
He grew up — and still lives — on the edge of the Cotswolds, in western England where snow is rare and the hills would never be mistaken for mountains. His father expected his son to follow him into plastering — as he did after his father and grandfather.
But an adolescent Edwards had different designs after a school trip to the Italian Alps sparked a passion for skiing. He became a fixture at Gloucester Ski Centre, where a bristly plastic surface shorter than three football fields offers year-round skiing.
He became a good downhiller, but didn't make the British ski team for the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics. Undeterred, he set his sights higher after realizing Britain had no ski jumpers.
Edwards went to Lake Placid, New York, where he rummaged for skis and gear, including a helmet with no strap that he secured with string and oversized boots he padded out with five pairs of socks.
At 22, he was learning what the world’s best jumpers began mastering as children.
“It was like a crash course. And, yeah, I did take huge risks,” he said. “When I finished ski jumping, I was just as scared to do my last jump as I was to do my first. You never get used to it.”
Short on cash and lacking sponsors, he scrounged food from trash bins, slept in barns, a car and even a mental hospital in Finland — not to mention medical hospitals.
"It would be easier to name the bones I haven’t broken," he quipped.
He fractured his skull twice — while wearing a helmet — broke his jaw, smashed his collarbone in five places, broke three ribs and damaged a kidney and a knee. It didn't stop him.
He worked up to bigger jumps and competed internationally. Despite efforts by British sports federations to prevent him competing, he eventually jumped far enough to represent Great Britain at the Olympics.
Edwards arrived in Calgary to a sign welcoming “Eddie the Eagle” — unaware it was for him.
Reporters loved his enthusiastic underdog determination and physical appearance. He was hefty by ski jumping standards, had a lantern jaw, wispy moustache and eyes that bulged behind thick lenses in his pink-rimmed aviator-style glasses.
Few outside the ski jumping world remember the winner, “Flying Finn” Matti Nykänen, who soared over 120 meters and swept all events.
The most famous remains the man who finished last — 19 meters behind his nearest competitor, but setting a new British record of 71 meters (77 yards).
Edwards flapped his arms madly after landing and the crowd of 85,000 went wild.
He returned to a hero's welcome, escorted by police through throngs at London's Heathrow Airport.
“My feet didn’t touch the ground for, oh gosh, about three and a half, four years,” he said. “I was traveling all over the world opening shopping centers, golf courses, hotels, fun rides, doing lots of TV shows and radio shows, meeting film stars, TV stars, musicians, bands, famous people, royalty, all over world and it was amazing.”
The ski jumping world was less enamored and made sure there will never be another ski jumper like Edwards.
“We have thousands of Eddie Edwards in Norway,” groused Torbjorn Yggeseth, the ski jump technical director for the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), the sport’s regulatory body. "But we never let them jump.”
What's known as the “Eddie the Eagle rule" set a minimum distance beyond his reach and ended Edwards' jumping ambitions.
As promotional opportunities evaporated, Edwards returned to plastering.
Then a winning turn on Splash! a reality diving contest, helped revive his second career in 2013. Three years later, the biopic “Eddie the Eagle” starring Taron Egerton as Edwards and Hugh Jackman as his coach allowed him to retire his trowel.
He now earns 3,000 to 12,000 pounds ($4,000-16,000) for talks several days a week, helping him recover from financial setbacks.
Much of the small fortune he earned from his first wave of fame vanished because a trust fund required to maintain his amateur status was poorly managed, he said. An emotionally taxing divorce in 2016 with the mother of his two daughters drained more savings.
The “Beauty and the Beast” adaptation at the Watersmeet Theatre in Rickmansworth, outside London, is his second foray into pantomime.
Panto, as it's known, is a uniquely British take on classic fairytales at Christmastime that blends music, dance, slapstick, cross-dressing, jokes for kids and bawdy humor for their parents and often stars minor celebrities alongside aspiring actors.
Zany plot twists sneak in references to Edwards’ fame even though half the audience wasn’t old enough to have even seen the movie when it came out — never mind watching him in the Olympics.
“Jump” by Van Halen plays as his character, Professor Crackpot, the bumbling father of Belle, enters the stage toting his latest invention — jet-propelled skis.
At 62, Edwards' once-blond hair is shaved, his moustache is missing, his underbite has been surgically corrected and his glasses are gone — his nearsightedness corrected with implanted lenses.
A recurring gag has children in the audience shout, “on your head," when he fumbles in search of his gigantic eyeglasses.
He later skis on stage in a replica of his baby blue ski suit from Calgary. He tucks into a downhill position to outrun Santa's sleigh bearing down from a video projected behind him. Edwards flies off a jump, sticks the landing and is presented with a gold medal.
The scene served no plot point, but recognized what Edwards is best known for: taking a leap and landing on his feet. It's a crowd pleaser.
AP Olympics coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
FILE - British ski jumper Michael Edwards known as Eddie The Eagle celebrates a jump, during the Winter Olympics 90 meter ski jumping competition at Calgary's Olympic Park, on Feb. 23, 1988. (AP Photo/Jack Smith, File)
British former ski jumper Michael Edwards, known as Eddie the Eagle, displays one of his first ever taken press photos during an interview at the Ski and Snowboard Center, in Gloucester, England, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
FILE - British ski jumper Michael Edwards known as Eddie The Eagle flies towards 58th, and last place, in the 70 meter ski jump at the Winter Olympics, in Calgary, February 14, 1988. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara, File)
British former ski jumper Michael Edwards, known as Eddie the Eagle, poses for a photo at the Ski and Snowboard Center, in Gloucester, England, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
Michael Edwards, better known as Eddie the Eagle, plays Professor Crackpot, as he performs with fellow actors in the pantomime "Beauty and the Beast" at Watersmeet Theatre, in Rickmansworth, England, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)
