Hill Democrats largely stay on sidelines as party decides on new national chair

WASHINGTON — On the heels of getting locked out of power in Washington, Democrats will take a first step toward deciding the future of their party on Saturday when members of the Democratic National Committee elect a new chair.

Yet many top Democrats, including most members of Congress, have refrained from publicly weighing in on a contest that could set the party’s course as it navigates the Trump era and shapes its messaging in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections.

The three leading contenders for the post include a pair of Midwesterners – Ken Martin, the longtime chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and Ben Wikler, who leads the state party in neighboring Wisconsin – and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. Other hopefuls include Faiz Shakir, who led Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, and Marianne Williamson, who has made two unsuccessful White House runs.

The DNC’s top job is equal parts cheerleader, fundraiser, administrator and communicator. Whoever wins the election will be expected to lead the party out of the wilderness after stinging defeats in November. The outgoing chairman, Jaime Harrison, who was tapped for the slot by President Joe Biden four years ago, has opted not to run for a second four-year term.

The DNC is just one leg of a multipronged effort to elect Democrats at the federal level. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee oversees House races, while the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is tasked with winning the Senate majority. Both groups, which are led by members of Congress, are responsible for their own fundraising and help with recruiting candidates.

“The DNC is not a panacea for every problem” that Democrats face, said Mike Nellis, founder of the Chicago-based digital firm Authentic, whose clients include Democratic House and Senate candidates. “It’s a fundraising and messaging vehicle, where a lot of good people work. So whichever person they pick should demonstrate they understand how to build a state party… and help us compete everywhere, not just in a handful of states.”

Members weigh in

Martin, Wikler and O’Malley have each touted the support they’ve received, both from the 448 voting members of the DNC, who are largely state and local party activists, and from elected officials at all levels of government.

Only a smattering of congressional lawmakers are voting DNC members, according to a list published by the left-leaning The American Prospect. They include House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who has not made a public endorsement.

Wikler has the backing of Sens. Charles E. Schumer of New York and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the two top Democrats in the Senate. Schumer praised Wikler’s fundraising and organizing skills, and Durbin called him a “Midwest fighter” who knows how to win competitive races.

Wikler, whose home state of Wisconsin is a perennial battleground, boasts of support from across the ideological spectrum in Congress. Rep. Delia Ramirez, a progressive from Chicago and voting member of the DNC, said she’s confident Wikler will “be the leader our party needs to unify our coalition, stand up to MAGA extremists, and win the trust of working people.”

Longtime Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who represents a swing district in northwest Ohio, said Wikler “knows there’s nothing more important than being able to unite a big tent.”

Wikler also recently won the support of seven Democratic governors, including Gretchen Whitmer from purple Michigan and red-state incumbents such as Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Laura Kelly of Kansas.

Martin has been publicly endorsed by his home-state colleagues, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats’ recent vice presidential nominee, and the state’s two senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.

“The work that Ken has done in Minnesota is a national model for turning purple states blue,” Smith said on social media.

Also in Martin’s corner are influential South Carolina Rep. James E. Clyburn and several congressional lawmakers who are also DNC members, including Reps. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, Nikema Williams of Georgia and Robert Garcia of California. Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, also a former DNC chairman, is a supporter too.

O’Malley has the backing of prominent Maryland politicians such as Reps. Jamie Raskin and Kweisi Mfume, as well as Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, who chaired the committee from 2009 to 2011.

But many big-name Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have not publicly weighed in.

Growing the party

At a candidate forum Friday in Charleston, S.C. — one of several the DNC chair hopefuls have engaged in — Wikler, Martin and O’Malley all pledged to reenergize the party and expand its reach.

O’Malley said Democrats should invest the resources needed to win in every state.

“We need to stop complaining that we don’t feel connected to areas that we abandoned,’’ he said. “You know, if we abandon them, why should they feel connected?”

Wikler said the party can’t rely on a one-size-fits-all approach.

“We need to build a strategy in each state that is suited to the coalitions, to the folks on the ground, to the organizing challenge, to the laws that look different everywhere,” he said.

Martin said he’d embrace a strategy that has Democrats competing in every state and territory, even those firmly in the grasp of the GOP.

“We can’t be a party just focused on seven battleground states … [and] a handful of congressional seats anymore,’’ Martin said. “The Republican Party is building power around their agenda in school boards, in city councils, in county commission seats all over this country in red areas, purple areas and blue areas. We cannot ignore these areas any longer.”

Democrats have been here before. The party suffered bruising losses in 2004, when George W. Bush was reelected and Republicans grew their majorities in Congress, and in 2016, when Trump won in a shock upset and voters kept the GOP in control of both chambers.

In both cases, the party came roaring back in the subsequent midterms.

“In 2016, as we came out of that devastating election, the DNC was 70-some-odd million dollars in debt … [and] our infrastructure was really terrible,’’ Martin said. “It took myself and a number of other state party leaders to … put a 57-state party strategy together, to actually build infrastructure again.”

(The 57-state strategy is political shorthand for the party’s goal of competing in all states, plus the District of Columbia, five territories and among expatriate voters.)

Similarly, after the losses of 2004, the party flipped both the House and Senate two years later amid widespread voter dissatisfaction with the Iraq War and a series of Republican political scandals, and as DNC Chair Howard Dean was touting his famed “50-state strategy.”

But “2006 was a long time ago,” said Connecticut Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, who was part of the Democratic wave that year, winning a House seat by defeating a 12-term Republican incumbent. “It sure feels like a different political world.”

Murphy, who has endorsed Wikler, said a better playbook for the party is the one Democrats deployed after Trump’s win in 2016.

“There’s a weird narrative out there today that the ‘resistance’ didn’t work and we shouldn’t repeat it,” Murphy said, referring to the movement on the left that grew out of Trump’s 2016 win.

While acknowledging that the anti-Trump energy masked some deeper problems within the Democratic Party, Murphy credited those efforts with stopping “some really awful things from happening,” including the repeal of the 2010 health care law.

“And it resulted in Democrats doing very well in the [2018] midterms and beating Trump when he ran for reelection,” Murphy said.

That, though, may have been the zenith of recent Democratic power in Washington. The party went on to lose the House in 2022 and the Senate and White House last fall. But Nellis, the Democratic consultant, said Democratic losses in November could have been far greater.

“We should have seen a 1984- or 2008-style wipeout. We got lucky we didn’t, given inflation,’’ said Nellis, who is not a voting DNC member and isn’t backing anyone publicly in the race. “I’m looking for a chair who understands that. While there are a lot of things that are broken and need to be fixed about the Democratic Party, it’s not a total smash job.”