Four people so far are running to be the next Democratic National Committee chair, looking to take on the task of reinvigorating a party demoralized by a second loss to President-elect Trump. Others may still get into the race as the party reckons with the 2024 election, which saw Trump gain with nearly every demographic group in a decisive repudiation of the incumbent party. The committee's roughly 450 members will elect a successor for outgoing Chair Jaime Harrison on Feb. 1. The four declared candidates—Ken Martin, Democratic chair in Minnesota and DNC vice chair; Martin O'Malley, former Maryland governor and current Social Security administrator; New York state Sen. James Skoufis; and Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party—spoke to the AP this week in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they were making their pitch in public and private at a meeting of state Democratic chairs. Here's a sampling of their responses.
Should Joe Biden have dropped out of the presidential race sooner?
- Martin: "To me it's an academic exercise. You can't change the past. So for us, it's really about what lessons can we draw right now that can inform the future."
- O'Malley: "I don't know. You guys playing this DC parlor game on me, I'm not going to engage in that. Sorry."
- Skoufis: "Yes. A 107-day runway made for an exceptionally difficult set of circumstances. And it was clear to most Democrats at the time that President Biden was not well-situated to run for reelection. And if dropping out sooner would have meant a primary, so be it. Vice President Harris, I'm very confident, still would have likely been the nominee if there was a primary. She would have been a stronger nominee with that longer runway."
- Wikler: "My campaign slogan is 'Unite, fight, win.' And to me, uniting means a reckoning with how we can adapt to do better, but not recriminations about different things in the past."
How do Democrats do better with Latino voters, particularly Latino men?
- Martin: "Every hot take right now that we see is completely garbage. It's just hogwash because it's not based in any research. ... We don't know what universes we targeted and how we were talking to the Latino community. ... All of that has to be on the table to really figure out, what did we do, where were the gaps, how did we fall down?"
- O'Malley: "I may sound like a broken record, but I really do believe it is the economic issues. It is the union jobs, living wages, opportunity for all ... Too many people heard 'defending America, defending democracy,' and they thought this meant defending the status quo."
- Skoufis: "I think it's showing up. We have to stop speaking in overly academic terms. Sometimes young voters in particular look at us and they think that we ought to be better running for chancellor of a small liberal arts college rather than public office."
- Wikler: "Most Latino voters, most Black voters, most white voters are working-class folks who have many issues that they care about. But all those issues take a back seat to the core question of whether you can keep a roof over your head and food on your table and make sure your kids have clothes to wear to school. The thing that Democrats have the chance to do is ... to show that we're on the side of those working folks."
More here from the four current candidates, including on whether they think Vice President Kamala Harris spent too much time courting GOP voters. (More
Democratic National Committee stories.)
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