Future of Democratic Party rest in hands of one of these candidates

(NewsNation) — After November’s election, where Democrats lost the presidency and their majority in the Senate and House Republicans maintained their majority, Democratic voters, donors and even elected officials are clamoring for change.

While the average American may not know who the chair of the Democratic National Committee is, the role has a direct impact on their lives.

With the reelection of President-elect Donald Trump, the chair will no doubt be tasked with pushing back against his administration and many of the policies Trump will try to enact.

The chair is also critical in organizing and steering the direction of the party through the candidates the DNC supports and, subsequently, through the policies that are enacted.

The current DNC chair, Jamie Harrison, has decided not to run for the position again. There are currently four candidates running to be the new chair of the DNC.

All four candidates gave in-depth interviews to NewsNation and were asked the same questions in an effort to better understand and compare their candidacies. You can read each Q&A by clicking on their names: Martin, O’Malley, Skoufis, Wikler.

For a party that some describe as one in disarray, there’s quite a lot of agreement and overlap amongst these four candidates in the diagnosis of what went wrong in the 2024 election and where the party needs to go.

All four readily acknowledge that Democrats failed to make a strong enough economic argument. They are clear that it’s important to also focus on down-ballot races.

Also, they all note that Democrats need to reach and meet voters where they are, whether on social media platforms or in more traditionally Republican areas.

They each seem confident that they’re ready to push back against the incoming Trump administration. And they recognize that though they are all white men, the diversity of the Democratic Party is a strength and one they would rely on and elevate as chair.

It's in their disparate experiences, communication styles and the nuances of their plans that one can find strategic differences and assess how they would shape the future of the party.

For instance, two of the candidates are state party chairs (Wikler and Martin), while the other two have held elected office (Skoufis and O’Malley).

Both Wikler and Martin plan to nationalize the success they’ve had in their respective states as organizers to create change and win in future elections.

O’Malley and Skoufis have both had to answer to voters as elected officials and point to career successes as evidence that they can create the change needed for Democrats to succeed.

Ben Wikler

Wikler's motto for this race is “Unite. Fight. Win.” Of November’s election, Wikler said, “We won our U.S. Senate race…We flipped 14 state legislative seats thanks in part to maps that we fought and fought for.” He also pointed to last year’s success in winning a state Supreme Court majority.

Noting a commitment to a year-round, permanent campaign, Wikler said that his team is already focused on future elections, including another state Supreme Court seat in the spring. He believes Democrats are “on a path to winning a democratic trifecta in 2026 … after looking pretty red for a few years.”

Though Wisconsin voted for Trump, Wikler explained that voters’ swing to the right was less pronounced in Wisconsin than in the other battleground states.

Wikler said, “The party has an opportunity and a necessity to rebuild the Democratic brand.” He wants to focus on uniting the national party “around the work that we need to do in every state” to gear up for elections between now and the presidential election in 2028.

Ken Martin

Martin said that since he officially became chair of the Minnesota Dems in 2011, the party hasn’t lost a statewide election, saying, “I’m 25 and 0.”

He believes Minnesota’s reputation as a blue state comes after years of building the DFL.

While Martin said people may think it's just a given that Democrats are going to win in Minnesota, “that's just not true. It's a very purple state. And anyone who's paying attention knows that we're one of the closest non-battleground states in the country.”

In fact, at the state level, Democrats lost control of the statehouse. Martin noted that while Democrats will now have to enter into a power-sharing agreement, they did not outright lose the majority.

Martin, who is also currently vice chair of the DNC and president of the Association of State Democratic Committees, has a 10-point plan on how Democrats can rebuild and plan for success in the next 10 years. He also touted his commitment to year-round organizing.

Martin O’Malley

O’Malley was accountable to voters, first as mayor of Baltimore (1999-2007) and then as governor of Maryland (2007-2015). Most recently, he served as commissioner of the Social Security Administration, stepping down early to run for DNC chair.

As governor of Maryland, O’Malley was also elected chair of the Democratic Governors Association for three years (2010-2012) and cited successes during his tenure as evidence that he has the track record to be DNC chair.

As DGA chair, O’Malley said he was in charge of their strategy in over 50 states and ultimately “expanded our map to so-called red states winning governor races in Montana, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia and North Carolina.”

Explaining what worked, O’Malley said, “We honed our message to three words: ‘Jobs. Opportunity. Now.’ And guess what? We could fight under that banner in every state in the union and win.”

After November’s losses, O’Malley says the DNC needs “more openness, more transparency, not how we’ve always done it.

“A chair for a wartime footing, not a caretaker.”

James Skoufis

Skoufis currently holds office as a New York state senator. He said he won his seat three times as a Democrat in a Trump-friendly district.

He is using that success to make the case that Democrats need an outsider like him to “come in with a proven track record of winning because that's all we should care about.”

Skoufis believes that too many Americans don’t know what the Democratic Party stands for, and he wants to “make wholesale changes to the DNC, rebuild it from the ground up.”

He also wants to partner with state chairs like Martin and Wikler to make sure that in 2028, Democrats keep states like Minnesota blue and turn Wisconsin blue again.

Despite not being well-known nationally, Skoufis believes that among DNC members, there is “an enormous appetite to try something new … not make the same mistakes over and over again that have led us to this point where we're locked out of all power in Washington.”

There are 448 DNC members who will vote for chair, along with other leadership positions, at the committee’s meeting on Feb. 1.

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