CNN
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As Democrats head toward an uncertain future under a second Trump administration, the party’s search for a new leader to help rebuild the party also remains unsettled.
The process of choosing a new Democratic National Committee chair will officially kick off Saturday, when eight candidates meet virtually in the first party-run forum of the race. With three weeks to go before the February 1 election, no candidate has locked up support from a majority of the 448 party insiders who’ll choose the next party leader.
The chair race marks the first major decision Democrats will make after facing disastrous losses in last year’s general election. The contest to lead the party, and the various unofficial forums and small group meetings that preceded Saturday’s event, have become a space for Democrats to hash out what went wrong, how to reach the voters who abandoned the party in November and how the millions of dollars spent in lost swing states might have been better used.
Despite early reports that some high-profile names were considering joining the race, the current field of eight candidates – led by Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin, Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley – is made up of figures who are not well known nationally.
For many DNC members, that’s a bonus.
“The vibe I get is that people are super hungry for an operative chair,” said one DNC member who is part of a state delegation. “We want work horses.”
The DNC is made up of a mix of state party leaders and committee people, members of allied Democratic groups, union leaders and at-large members appointed by the current chair. The largest bloc consists of the state party leaders, who have made investments in their states a key issue.
Solidifying support from state party chairs and vice chairs, who make up about 114 members of the DNC and have influence over their state delegations, could prove key to winning a race where no candidate has locked up a majority of support.
The DNC will hold three additional forums: one in Detroit on January 16 focused on the Midwest; one virtually on January 23 focused on the West; and a final in-person event in Washington, DC, on January 30, focused on the East.
Saturday’s forum will be focused on the issues of the South.
Christale Spain, the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party who is still deciding who she’ll back in the February 1 election, said she wants to know the candidates’ plans for funding a “southern strategy.”
“We just cannot concede ground because it’s hard,” Spain said. “We can win in the south, but it’s just going to take a long-term investment.”
Many DNC members are hoping now is the time to shake up not just how funds are distributed but how the party operates broadly. The last time Democrats were able to elect a DNC chair – in 2017, after Donald Trump first won the White House – the party instituted major reforms to address the concerns of progressives who backed independent Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.
This time around, candidates are being pressed on messaging to working class voters, holding consultants accountable and investing in state parties frustrated by the disparity between the amount of money that went into battleground states and what could have been spent to make their races more competitive.
It’s difficult to say how much support any candidate has. The DNC doesn’t publicly release its member lists, and no campaigns have released full lists of their endorsements.
According to the campaigns of the leading candidates, Martin has “well over 100” endorsements; O’Malley has “60+ and counting”; New York state Sen. James Skoufis has 23 endorsements; and Wikler has declined to release numbers.
In addition to Martin, Wikler, O’Malley and Skoufis, four other candidates have gathered enough signatures to appear at the Saturday forum: former congressional candidate Quintessa Hathaway; attorney and political strategist Jason Paul; Nate Snyder, a former US Department of Homeland Security official; and former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson.
Martin – who has been a state party chair since 2011 and now chairs the Association of State Democratic Committees – has the deepest ties to state party leaders. In interviews, chairs who’ve endorsed him said he’s been a constant presence over the years, providing insight, aiding with fundraising and traveling through their states with them.
Earlier this month, Martin campaigned in northern Virginia on behalf of candidates running in special elections for an open state House and Senate seat. Susan Swecker, the chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia, said he also visited Virginia in the fall to campaign for congressional candidates and in 2021 when Democrats lost the governorship.
“One of the things I love about Ken is he shows up and is ready to do the hard work,” Swecker said.
Russ Carnahan, a former US representative who now leads the Missouri Democratic Party, said Martin had been instrumental in helping the party rebuild when Carnahan took over in 2023. As the race unfolded, Carnahan suggested to his state’s delegation that they vote as a bloc.
“About three minutes into the meeting, everybody was like, ‘Well, this is a no brainer: Ken,’” he said. “We know what he’s done in his own state, we know what he’s done nationally, and we know what he’s done very substantially to help us in Missouri.”
A spokesperson for Wikler pointed to his work with his colleagues. In 2021, the Wisconsin Democratic Party donated $300,000 to the Florida Democratic Party to help them pay for staff health insurance. Wikler also advised entrepreneur and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman to send funds to the Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina and Ohio state parties, according to the spokesperson.
Allies of Martin have portrayed Wikler as too closely tied to donors at a time when Democrats are questioning the party’s ties to the consultant class. But the Wisconsin Democrat’s supporters note that whoever leads the party must be able to fundraise – an area where Wikler has excelled. In 2024, his state party raised nearly $62 million, more than any other state party committee.
Lavora Barnes, the outgoing chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said she was endorsing Wikler because of the work he’d done building up the state party in Wisconsin.
“It’s been helpful to me to have Ben to call to bounce ideas off of, to share thoughts, to occasionally commiserate with – and Ben has done the same with me,” she said. “We have been truly able to help each other through some tough moments during these campaigns.”
As the race heads into its final weeks, Barnes argued that DNC members are still weighing their options.
“I think that everyone who is watching this should consider it an open race, that there are still votes to be gotten, and that Ben is going to do all he can to get each and every one of those votes,” she said.
No candidate has claimed as many private endorsements or released as many public ones as Martin – including endorsements from eight state delegations and the party chairs of seven additional states. But other campaigns say the Minnesotan also failed to secure enough votes to lock up the office and expect that no candidate will win a majority of ballots during the first round of voting.
“No one’s been able to run away with it over the past two months,” Skoufis said.
Others have pointed to the news that the Association of State Democratic Committees, the group Martin chairs that represents the largest voting bloc in the DNC, decided this week not to endorse a candidate.
Those arguing the race is still fluid have also pointed to the news this week that the ASDC, the group of which Wikler is a member, decided not to endorse. While Martin’s supporters said state party leaders felt choosing would not be conducive to party unity, backers of other campaigns said it was a sign there are votes to be won among the ASDC’s ranks.
“That says that they are still open, and they’re still looking,” former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, an O’Malley supporter who cannot vote in the DNC election, told CNN. “I think that there is an opportunity, clearly, for someone to make their case.”
Another DNC member, who said they are considering Martin and Wikler while “keeping an open mind” about O’Malley, said their colleagues were “underwhelmed” by the field.
“I do think a lot of folks who are keeping their powder dry are still waiting to see if somebody else jumps in,” they said. “If there is somebody else with any sort of stature who is compelling or inspiring it shouldn’t be that hard for them to make the ballot.”
