Democrats are set to give an early indication of how much their party will change after this year’s bruising losses, with a new leadership election next year.
As the party argues over how Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris, many are pointing to its leadership for lacking transparency — whether it be around candidate selection or how it’s spending the national budget.
“We shouldn’t choose anybody that is just saying we need to make a few tweaks to our strategy,” said Raj Goyle, a Democratic strategist and former Kansas state representative. “This is not a nip and tuck kind of moment. This is a wholesale reform moment.”
Jaime Harrison, the current Democratic National Committee chair, announced on Monday that committee members will take the vote for the incoming officers — including chair, vice chairs, treasurer, secretary and national finance chair — on Feb. 1. Harrison, who received internal criticism for strongly backing Joe Biden’s reelection bid, is reportedly not seeking another term as chair.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley was the first to announce his bid last week, posting on X: “We must connect our Party with the most important place in America — the kitchen table of every family’s home. Jobs, Opportunity, and Economic Security for all. Getting things done. Hope. A 50 state strategy. Now.”
Minnesota Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin is running for chair as well.
“When our brand is so broken that people don’t realize that we’re fighting for them, there’s something amiss here and we have to fix that,” Martin told CBS News on Monday.
The party is still in the middle of an internal reckoning between its left and right flanks.
“What we’ve seen with the past leadership is that they have the ability to bring in strong fundraising, but there is a general reluctance to challenge the status quo and that has left a lot of critical opportunities on the table,” said Nadia Ahmad, a Muslim delegate of Florida who peacefully protested during President Biden’s DNC speech in August.
Ahmad said the party “lost sight” of what it stood for by abandoning its focus on issues like climate justice, Democrats’ messaging around reproductive rights “didn’t tie very clearly” into economic equity and their foreign policy “was not grounded in human rights.”
Harris made a concerted effort to reach disaffected Republican voters, campaigning with Liz Cheney and running to the right of Biden on economics. She ultimately did not make up enough ground with moderates in an election where the majority of the country swung right.
“There has to be a very sober, realistic assessment of what just happened,” said Craig Snyder, a GOP strategist who supported Harris’ bid. “You want to elect a chairperson who acknowledges that Democrats are losing loyal voters, and who is dedicated to winning them back and not just doubling down on the remnants of the party that are left.”
Snyder blames progressives for Harris’ loss, arguing Democrats’ national brand was consumed by messaging that the party had moved too far to the left on COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates, Black Lives Matter protests, immigration and economic policy.
“People weren’t voting on how they feel today,” Snyder said. “They were voting on their sense of how the last four years went and their sense that they didn’t want to continue in the next four years in the same direction.”
An official who was involved in the Harris campaign disagreed that Democrats had moved too far to the left but said that it’ll be important for new DNC leadership to “ensure that every part of the coalition could get behind the messages we put out there.”
This kind of improvement is going to require more than a little change, Democrats insisted.
“We don’t need to drive the car a little faster or better,” Goyle said. “We need to build a new kind of car.”
And Democrats’ critique of the party is not limited to its outreach. Internally, some members of the DNC hope new leadership will bring some in-house changes.
John Verdejo, a DNC member from North Carolina, has a few suggestions that stem from concerns about inclusivity among committee members. Verdejo said, for one, members don’t get enough transparency about the national budget and how exactly money is being spent beyond top-line numbers. There is also a “sense among members” that the process for selecting at-large delegates is “unfair,” Verdejo said, seeing as though many of them are just big donors to Democrats.
Lastly, Verdejo said he’d like to see discussions continue about the committee potentially installing an ombudsman — which he said members agreed was necessary, but nothing resulted from.
“Now that the DNC finds itself in a position of not having the White House dictate how the committee is going, it could use more buy-in from its members,” Verdejo said. “The folks who elected us did so because of our backgrounds and expertise. We would like the new chair and staff to consider us more.”
In four public forums throughout January, candidates will be able to make their pitches to the 448 voting members of the committee. The rules will be fleshed out in December, but current rules require candidates to collect at least 40 members’ signatures to be on the ballot.
Voting will be limited to committee members, but virtual and in-person forums will be livestreamed to the public and there will be opportunities for grassroots Democrats to engage, a DNC official said.
While some Democrats worry the process will be siloed and ultimately bring no real change, Harrison insists that the election will be fair.
“The DNC is committed to running a transparent, equitable, and impartial election for the next generation of leadership to guide the party forward,” Harrison said in a statement. “Electing the Chair and DNC officers is one of the most important responsibilities of the DNC Membership, and our staff will run an inclusive and transparent process that gives members the opportunity to get to know the candidates as they prepare to cast their votes.”
—
Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.