Ever since Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election in November, a big-money group that had raised over $900 million to support her but ultimately failed in its efforts has kept a low profile — even as Ms. Harris’s advisers have publicly second-guessed its approach to the campaign.
But a closed-door conference this week hosted by the super PAC, Future Forward, at a luxury seaside hotel in California made plain that the group does not plan to fade away.
Future Forward drew some of the biggest names in Democratic politics to the Ritz-Carlton resort in Half Moon Bay, Calif., south of San Francisco, to brief donors on what it thought went wrong last year — and what could come next.
Attendees included potential future presidential candidates, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and seven-figure Democratic donors, some of whom had questions about why Future Forward was unable to help Ms. Harris win.
At an event on Thursday with passed hors d’oeuvres like mini lobster rolls and short-rib tostones and a dinner featuring heirloom tomato carpaccio, beef tenderloin and seared sea bass, Chauncey McLean, the group’s leader, gestured to criticism of what he called the group’s “reputation” — a dependence on polling and testing and randomized trials.
“Those are all just fancy ways of saying we listen to voters and try to gauge whether any of the things we do actually work,” Mr. McLean said, according to a person in the room. The group declined to comment.
Standing in the Ritz-Carlton’s observatory room, Mr. McLean tried to both calm the waters and send a message that Future Forward wants to remain a part of the Democratic Party, despite the criticism.
Other speakers at the event included Mr. Newsom and Mr. Beshear, as well as Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor, and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, according to a copy of the agenda reviewed by The New York Times. They were interviewed by Future Forward operatives, such as the pollster David Shor and the former Biden adviser Anita Dunn, and by Kara Swisher, a former New York Times opinion columnist.
The guests included about 40 donors who funded roughly $250 million of Future Forward’s work in the 2024 election cycle, the group told guests at the conference, according to a person who attended.
Those megadonors included Jeff Lawson, a founder of the tech company Twilio, and the investor Andrew Hauptman, who each gave $1 million to the super PAC last cycle, as well as the philanthropist Shannon Hunt-Scott, who gave $450,000. Also in attendance were aides to several of the party’s most influential billionaires, such as Dustin Moskovitz, a founder of Facebook.
Sessions included a viewing of a live focus group of young men in what was 2024’s hardest-fought congressional district, California’s 13th; a briefing from the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association; and a closing session on Friday featuring three Democratic members of Congress.
“The best way to stop Donald Trump at the federal level is to win control of the House of Representatives in 2026,” read the agenda. Many of Future Forward’s talks highlighted Democrats who had won in conservative states, such as Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas.
The mere existence of the conference, especially for a group known for its discretion, fascinated Democratic donors and their advisers in recent months. Some privately said in advance that they were attending Future Forward’s event partly out of curiosity about how the group would defend its work last year.
Ms. Harris’s team has shared some veiled criticism of Future Forward, including in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America” just after Election Day. Privately, some Democrats have been far less friendly, saying that Future Forward aired ads too late in the cycle and should have focused more squarely on turning out Black and Hispanic voters for Ms. Harris.
Top Future Forward advisers on Friday defended their approach to guests that included Minyon Moore, a longtime Democratic operative and a Harris confidante. They outlined that 96.3 percent of the super PAC’s spending was on advertising, as opposed to unrelated, overhead costs, and that its nonprofit gave $220 million to 73 progressive groups, according to two people in the room when the information was presented. Advisers also reviewed which of the group’s ads worked and which did not, based on data it collected.
Given Ms. Harris’s defeat, it has not been clear to well-heeled Democrats that Future Forward has a path forward. The group was founded during the 2018 election, and its leaders did not initially anticipate that it would become a long-term part of the Democratic establishment, though President Joseph R. Biden Jr. eventually made it the primary outside group supporting his re-election bid.
In recent months, Future Forward has held private conversations with donors to discuss what happened in 2024 and to express the group’s desire to remain active in politics, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.
The group has said that since its founding it has raised $1.4 billion, but it remains to be seen whether it will be the leading group for a 2028 presidential nominee.
