After winning Saturday’s election, Ken Martin, the veteran head of Minnesota’s state Democratic Party organization, will take over as chair of the Democratic National Committee as his party attempts to turn the page and bounce back from a disappointing 2024.
Using his connections with the more than 400 DNC voting members that he developed over his more than ten years of service within the official Democratic Party, Martin had been the front-runner from the start of the contest. And such connections were crucial since he secured a majority of the first ballot’s voters, surpassing the second-place finisher, Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler, by more than 100 votes.
As in 2017, following President Donald Trump’s previous election victory, the race depended more on the candidates’ fundraising and organizing skills than on their positions on the party’s core ideology. Wikler having been at the core of some of the most high-profile Democratic contests in recent years, former Maryland Governor Martin O. Malley had special electoral and governmental expertise, and Martin was the more seasoned hand with strong party ties.
Speaking to the DNC membership following his win, Martin urged the party to unite following a largely uneventful and occasionally tense race and to concentrate on running against President Donald Trump.
“The Democratic Party is our only team, and we are fighting a single battle. He answered, “The fight is out there, not in here.”
Donald Trump and the billionaires who purchased this nation are currently the targets of the battle.
Martin will now have the responsibility of assisting Democrats in recovering from the devastation of the 2024 election cycle, which left them without any authority in Washington. Although Martin will contribute to the party’s progress, Democrats do not necessarily view him as the party’s most important leader.
We lack a leader because we are an out-of-power party. And from a philosophical standpoint, I believe that this somebody would lead our party. “That’s not really true,” said Matt Corridoni, a seasoned Democratic strategist who has previously worked for the committee and on a DNC chair campaign.
“That individual was a leader of our party,” Corridoni added, adding that no one had ever truly looked to the most recent DNC chairs.
Martin was aware of this, framing the chair position throughout his campaign as carrying out the crucial party-building tasks that will lay the groundwork for Democratic candidates to use up and down the ballot and help establish the tone as the party faces Trump.
“This is a new DNC for the Republican Party and Donald Trump. Shortly after his triumph, Martin told reporters, “When you fail the American people, we are not going to sit back and not take you on.”
“The role of the party is not just to go out there and build the infrastructure,” Martin stated. “It’s also to make sure we’re defining them and we’re out there making sure the American people know what the stakes of not only these coming elections are, but what’s happening in this country.”
Martin told reporters that his first priority as chair would be to examine the party’s “contracts,” look “at the state of the party, the finances,” and begin a “post-election review process.”
Since our party is still alive, we don’t refer to it as an autopsy or post-mortem. Isn’t it still going strong? Martin stated.
“The truth is,” he continued, “we must begin to grasp the events of the previous election cycle at this time. We are aware that we have lost support from Latino voters, as well as from women, younger people, and, of course, members of the working class. The how and why are yet unknown to us.
Throughout the race, the front-runners were largely in agreement about what the DNC needed to do in order to proceed: make sure the party has the funds to run in every race in every state and territory; adopt a permanent organizational posture to help cultivate relationships with potential voters; and conduct a postmortem analysis of the Democratic Party’s spending after it failed at the presidential level despite vastly outspending Trump and Republicans. In an effort to address a more serious issue—Democrats’ poor performance among young and Hispanic voters—all of the contenders also discussed attempting to reach new audiences and emphasizing new messengers.
Martin presented himself as the seasoned candidate to take over the party organization during the contest to replace departing DNC chair Jaime Harrison. He has led the Minnesota party for more than 10 years, and he has frequently emphasized his unblemished record in statewide contests, claiming that his state has been a Democratic ray of light as the party has suffered significant setbacks in other blue wall states in the Midwest.
In addition to his record, Martin had built ties with party members as the head of the Association of State Democratic Chairs and the vice chair of the national party committee, which helped him secure the votes he needed to win in spite of Wikler’s last-minute push.
Because of those connections, Martin received a lot more public endorsements from the DNC voting body than any other candidate—roughly 200. Additionally, Martin secured high-profile endorsements of his own, including those of Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the influential congressman who helped launch Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic Party’s 2024 vice presidential nominee, while Wikler boasted of the backing of prominent congressional Democrats.
In a brief speech to the DNC’s Poverty Council on Thursday afternoon, Martin cited Trump’s suggestion that the terrible plane crash in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night was caused by a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
The stakes for this country have never been higher, so we must come together as a party immediately. It is disgusting what we have witnessed over the past two weeks. Two weeks in, Martin stated, “They’re destroying communities and shattering people’s lives.” He continued by talking about his early years, growing up in poverty with a young mother who lived in and out of shelters.
“We are currently fighting for working people across the nation,” Martin continued. Consider the $460 billion cabinet in Donald Trump’s administration. The top 100th of 1%, not the top 1%. Do you really think they care about working people, families like mine, or individuals like you and me who are struggling? Our current battle is not only for workers, but also for those attempting to enter the middle class and for the future.
Wikler failed in spite of a late surge and support from prominent members of the Democratic Party, such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and governors Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Laura Kelly of Kansas. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Service Employees International Union were among the prominent unions that backed Wikler.
Wikler congratulated Martin and urged “everyone who supported me to join me in working with Chair Martin to ensure that the Democratic Party rises to this moment of crisis in our country.”
The contest lacked the intense ideological split of the previous competitive race for chair in 2017, when the party was still recovering from a crushing defeat in the election and was split by the hacking and publication of internal party emails that further widened the gap between establishment Democrats and progressives.
Harrison used the microphone several times prior to Martin’s victory to make ambiguous threats against those who were harassing DNC members for their vote, despite the fact that the race lacked the fireworks of some previous contests.
Throughout the past two days, while we were here, I’ve heard that people have been harassed and frightened by their vote, and that donors have been calling to inform them that they will no longer be providing funds as a result of their vote, he added.
“People, that kind of behavior will not be tolerated in this party,” Harrison stated.
Shortly before the vote, Rev. Leah Daughtry told NBC News that the newly appointed Democratic chairman “must become the standard bearer, the visionary that can help our party move from the mat into the place we need to be to win back voters and to win elections in the days to come.”
“Now we have the complete team, and I think we re ready,” she stated. She cited Trump’s social media tweets and remarks following this week’s horrific plane and helicopter collision in the Potomac River.
Daughtry stated, “Instead of him being able to bring our country together, he created more division,” which increased the “focus” on Democrats’ fight against him.