Democrats are still without a leader after a bruising 2024 election loss. But this weekend they will take their first tangible step to drag themselves forward by choosing the next chairman of the party’s national committee.
Democratic National Committee members will meet Saturday in National Harbor, Maryland, to vote on a replacement for outgoing chair Jaime Harrison, whom Joe Biden tapped to helm the party during his time in office.
The incoming DNC chair will take the reins of the fundraising, spending and staffing plans for an organization that spent just shy of $1 billion the last four years. While the committee helps set the Democrats’ message and can serve as a home base for a party out of the White House, whoever wins Saturday’s vote will be more in charge of laying groundwork for a Democratic renaissance than leading the party back to power himself.
That’s why the DNC race has become less of a battle for the soul of the party and more a nuanced debate between front-runners who agree on a lot — and understand that the next chair will need to wade into the nitty-gritty of party-building instead of grabbing headlines.
The front-runners: Two Democratic state party chairs from the Midwest are touting the most support from DNC members: Minnesota’s Ken Martin and Wisconsin’s Ben Wikler.
Martin regularly touts how his party-building in Minnesota has coincided with an uninterrupted streak of statewide wins for Democrats since he took over, amid GOP victories in some other Midwestern “blue wall” states. Wikler has built up permanent campaign infrastructure in battleground Wisconsin and promoted it as a model for the party nationwide.
The other contenders: Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who ran for president in 2016, is the only other candidate to tout significant support from DNC members. He’s the only major candidate who has been elected to public office. And Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to Bernie Sanders, jumped into the race just a few weeks before the election.
The process: DNC members’ votes aren’t made public until after the election, giving ample room for members to change their mind ahead of time. And if no candidate walks into the first ballot with the majority, a multitude of dynamics could determine the eventual winner as the race goes to several rounds of voting.
Read more from Ben →
🔵 Resistance 2.0: Meanwhile, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is offering some of the most direct Democratic pushback yet to the start of Trump’s term. Natasha Korecki scoops that he is blocking those who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol from working in state jobs, rejecting Trump’s attempt to offer them a clean slate last week in a wave of pardons.
