Former Sanders campaign manager Shakir launches DNC chair bid

Progressive strategist Faiz Shakir, who ran Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign in 2020, has announced a late bid to lead the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Citing a “lack of vision and conviction” on display within the Democratic agency as the race for chair takes shape, Shakir is pitching a populist-style remake of the party apparatus that emphasizes the working class.

In a memo to DNC members sent Wednesday, the Sanders alum explained that he is running to “change how Democrats are perceived by voters” by offering more investment in workers and unions, grassroots organizing and conversations with former Democrats who flipped their votes to President-elect Trump.

“If we learned anything from our last four years, it should be that we must break some norms and get more compelling, interesting, and dynamic to win,” he wrote in the memo sent to 448 DNC members. “We can’t continue to defer critical political judgments to a donor class or some other outside actors. To be a multiracial working class Party, we must prove we are on their side in the fight against corporate greed.”

While two other center-left candidates, Wisconsin’s Ben Wikler and Minnesota’s Ken Martin, have been campaigning for weeks to succeed current Chair Jaime Harrison, Shakir is outlining a more extensive shake-up of the committee, which has come under intense criticism following President Biden’s administration and Vice President Harris’s loss to Trump.

“I sense a constrained, status-quo style of thinking,” he wrote about his rivals, who also include former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, spiritual author and 2024 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson and New York state Sen. James Skoufis. “We cannot expect working class audiences to see us any differently if we are not offering anything new or substantive to attract their support.”

Shakir’s announcement comes not long after fellow contenders started engaging in a series of chairperson forums. According to DNC rules, Shakir will be able to participate in upcoming sessions planned for late January.

“I offer my candidacy at this late moment only because I have concrete ideas and the necessary experience of how to use an organization with tens of millions of dollars in resources and nationwide staff to attract working class support,” Shakir wrote.

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