Battle for DNC chair kicks off under shadow of Trump
The battle over who will take the reins of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has begun as the party points fingers and works to refocus after resounding losses on Election Day.
Current DNC Chair Jaime Harrison is not expected to seek another term, opening up what could be a highly competitive contest for his leadership role. Whoever takes the position will signal where the party’s priorities stand as President-elect Trump reenters the Oval Office and steer Democrats forward as focus turns toward 2028.
The race officially kicked off this week when former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) entered the ring Monday. Minnesota state Democratic leader Ken Martin jumped in Tuesday, and multiple other names are being floated for the slot. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel is reportedly weighing a bid, though David Axelrod — who was an adviser to former President Obama — and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) publicly clashed over the suggestion last week.
“Just like the presidential election was a change election, the DNC chair election will be a change election,” said Todd Belt, the director of the political management program at George Washington University. “People want a break from the past.”
Democrats are “flabbergasted” after their dismal Election Day results, Belt said, when they lost control of the Senate and the White House and made way for a GOP trifecta to take power next year. There’s also ongoing criticism about how the replacement of President Biden on the ticket was handled, and “a lot of frustration” among rank-and-file Democrats about whether the party’s governing elite are out of touch with everyday Americans.
“The finger-pointing is still going on and will continue to go on, but I think what a successful candidate for this position to do is acknowledge the weaknesses that the party has right now, especially among working-class voters, and try to find a way to put together what will ultimately be the post-mortem,” Belt said.
Harrison, who has held the national chair position since 2021, steered the DNC through this year’s historic presidential ticket switch-up and Harris’s fast-tracked bid. After Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) attributed Democrats’ losses to the party having abandoned the working class, Harrison hit back that the progressive was spewing “straight up BS.”
How prospective national chair candidates address and frame the party’s 2024 losses are set to play a major role in their bids for the position, strategists said.
“What we need to see is somebody who can take the very, very clear lessons of not just this election, but the past several presidential elections, where we’ve gone from winning very conclusively [to] eking out and white-knuckling a very narrow victory … and really apply it to how we approach elections writ large going forward,” said Democratic strategist Jon Reinish.
The party needs to look at “fresh, young, next-generation … outsider voices,” Reinish said, as Democrats recalibrate.
“I’m hoping that we have a wide array of people and experiences to evaluate who can make the case for why they’re the ones to lead the party out of the wilderness,” he added.
Axelrod, who worked on Obama’s campaigns, pushed last week for Emanuel to take the chair position, calling the veteran Washington insider a “skillful, political kind of infighter.” Emanuel has served as a member of Congress, White House chief of staff to Obama and mayor of Chicago.
But Ocasio-Cortez, one of the leading progressive voices on Capitol Hill, blasted reporting on Emanuel’s rumored bid.
“There is a disease in Washington of Democrats who spend more time listening to the donor class than working people. If you want to know the seed of the party’s political crisis, that’s it,” she wrote. She’d previously pushed back against Emanuel’s nomination to the ambassadorship.
In a separate post, Ocasio-Cortez knocked the idea of bringing “Obama-era insiders back for party-building purposes.”
O’Malley, a 2016 presidential contender, was the first official entrant into the DNC chair race on Monday, stepping down from his post as head of the Social Security Administration. He told The New York Times that Harris lost because “the American people’s eyes were taken off the ball and by the politics of fear,” and he argued “we need to focus on fixing the problem and not the blame.”
Martin announced his run Tuesday, touting his work to get his party out of disarray in Minnesota during his tenure. Martin told the Times that Democrats lost the presidential race because of “really strong headwinds blowing against us from the very beginning,” and he said the new DNC chair would have the chance to “reimagine” the committee “while also really trying to get at what happened in this last election.”
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler is “seriously considering” a run, a source familiar with his thinking told The Hill. Other names are in the mix, and experts say the race could get crowded.
“It’s a position where there’s often dark horses come out of nowhere,” Belt said.
One Democratic strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly said a focus on 2024 will “certainly” play a role in who becomes the next chair, but pushed back that the retrospective “at some point becomes counterproductive.”
“We have to be able to gel back together, starting now, in order to get ready for races in 2025,” the strategist said. “Yes, everybody’s talking about 2028 and 2026, but truth be told, we’ve got races in 2025 that will frame the ongoing environment under Republican leadership.”
The fundraiser, cheerleader and organizer role of DNC chair may become more visible when Biden exits the White House. Democrats will be on defense against a Trump White House and Republican-controlled Congress next year, with the midterms on the horizon. The Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill also will be in the spotlight as blue state governors and attorneys general make news with resistance efforts across the country.
But Democratic strategist Eddie Vale stressed that, while a big part of the job is to act as a public figurehead, the DNC chair is responsible for “actual day-to-day running the place … which is a different talent, and not a lot of people are necessarily good at both.”
The chair will ultimately be chosen by the roughly 450 members of the DNC. That’s notable, strategists said, because while some candidates for the chair slot may try to run a more external campaign, it’s all likely to come down to relationships within the party apparatus.
DNC members have until March 1 to hold an election, according to party bylaws, and whoever they select could helm the party through 2028.
“It’s going to be about figuring out what happened in this election,” Belt said of the DNC chair battle, “and charting a new way forward.”