Candidates vying to lead the Democratic National Committee have discovered a common enemy: D.C. consultants.
At the first DNC-sanctioned forum in the chairman race on Saturday, DNC candidates expressed frustration with a “DC insider” who New York State Sen. James Skoufis vowed would “kick the curb.” Ken Martin, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, promised that “DC consultants” “will be gone when I’m there.” And Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, pledged to go into 2025 “without committing to anyone who has previously been paid to campaign.”
It’s a sign of the times that the party, which burned through about $1.5 billion in the final months of the campaign, is falling behind President-elect Donald Trump. As the party still searches for answers to its crushing losses in 2024, consultants have become punching bags and DNC candidates have largely avoided arguing with one another. They all agreed that the party needed to re-establish its identity with the working class and establish a permanent campaign infrastructure across the country. However, some minor attacks did not have names attached.
Saturday’s forum was the first of four meetings scheduled for January ahead of the Feb. 1 DNC chairman election, the first big decision Democrats will make as they seek to redefine the party in a second Trump era.
Here are five takeaways from the virtual forum:
Paging Jamie Harrison
The candidates spent much of the 90-minute debate attacking D.C., but nearly all promised to move to the capital if elected. This is a question that has been circulating among DNC members for weeks, many of whom have been frustrated with DNC Chair Jaime Harrison’s decision to stay in South Carolina for the remainder of her term.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said, “A leader must lead from the front and be in the center of the circle,” and Skoufis, the only elected official running, said he would resign from the state. “The next DNC chairman must be fully committed,” the Senate said.
But Wikler, who has a young family in Wisconsin, has not committed to moving. He said he plans to keep a “congressional schedule” and be in D.C. “regularly,” but “I think there’s a strength that comes from a place where Democrats often don’t win every election.”
A field of “friends” who are mostly white and mostly male.
It was hard to miss amid all the floating video conferencing boxes on the forums on YouTube. The field of eight candidates was mostly white and mostly male. With the exception of former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson and entrepreneur Quintessa Hathaway, the contenders for the chairmanship come nowhere close to reflecting the diversity of the larger party.
What’s frustrating to some Democrats is that the field doesn’t better reflect the party as a whole.
“If you look at our party and you look at our elected officials who have actually done difficult things and accomplished difficult things in difficult states, none of them are in this conversation,” said Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic campaign veteran. She cautioned that her comments were not directed at men in the field, but rather at broader observations. “Women were not part of this conversation. All of our biggest and most famous experts are our friends. The senators who are writing op-eds about the future of our party are all friends. And the DNC candidates are friends.”
she came back
Williamson, a best-selling self-help author, is bringing her woo-woo brand of politics to the chair race.
Like her 2020 and 2024 bids, she has little chance of winning. But at least she makes it interesting. Williamson describes himself as the kind of spiritual healer the party needs, working very up close and personal with people “whose lives are on the line, who are sick, who have no access to health care, who have no opportunities, who are struggling educationally and economically.” “He said. , and they felt unnoticed by the political class.”
Williamson said the DNC’s failure to run a “strong primary” last year was the biggest mistake it made, brandishing his symbolic goodwill.
“In the name of saving democracy, we have suppressed democracy ourselves,” she said.
The problem is the economy, idiot.
Much lip service has been paid to what is widely believed to be one of the key reasons for Democrats’ election defeat last year: the party’s economic message, or lack thereof.
O’Malley said the Democratic Party’s “biggest mistake” was disconnecting from the American dinner table. “There were millions of Americans who didn’t know we were fighting for working families,” Wikler lamented. And Martin decried voters’ perception that Republicans, not Democrats, best represent the working class. This, he said, was only strengthened by Democrats’ overperformance among wealthier households and college-educated voters. ”
But they didn’t offer many concrete solutions to win voters back on Saturday. It’s a sign that Democrats have diagnosed major flaws in their message but haven’t yet figured out how to fix them. That’s a major potential problem for the party at a time when Trump is prepared to take credit for an economy that has begun to improve under President Joe Biden.
O’Malley called on the next DNC chair to “reaffirm our commitment” to being a party focused on the economic security of our people. Martin said the solution is year-round organizing in key communities. And Wikler’s suggestion for a course correction is to “communicate everywhere,” from conservative media to non-traditional platforms.
There is too much resistance.
Candidates vying to lead the DNC, a party that has been running explicitly against Trump for the past decade, have said little about the president-elect.
Call it a sign of the times.
Of course, O’Malley concluded by saying that the next DNC chairman must “deal with Trump and save our republic.” And Skoufis repeatedly cited lessons he learned from running for and winning state Senate districts that Trump could easily carry.
But as Democrats recalibrate their resistance to Trump to reflect the changed political landscape between Trump’s two terms, those hoping to lead the party’s next chapter appear to be taking note.
Correction: An earlier version of this report included a misspelling of New York State Senator James Skoufis’ last name.
