The Democrats have a brand new face in cost. Ken Martin was elected chair of the Democratic Nationwide Committee on Feb. 1. After years as a Minnesota mainstay and chief of the state’s main Democratic wing, Martin will head a celebration in flux after a 2024 defeat as it really works to drum up a unified technique to fight President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Amid the crowded race for DNC chair, Martin was all the time thought of a frontrunner. This was on account of his serving to maintain Minnesota a Democratic stronghold over the past eight years, whilst Republicans made main positive aspects all through the Midwest within the 2016 and 2024 elections.
Martin’s beginnings
Martin, 51, is a Minneapolis native who started working in politics in highschool. He’s the “son of a single mom and the primary youngster in his household, he has stated, to earn a school diploma,” stated The New York Instances. After faculty, Martin interned for former Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) within the Nineteen Nineties earlier than becoming a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Social gathering (DFL), Minnesota’s Democratic Social gathering coalition, and dealing his method up the ranks.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the details behind the information, plus evaluation from a number of views.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Join The Week’s Free Newsletters
From our morning information briefing to a weekly Good Information E-newsletter, get the perfect of The Week delivered on to your inbox.
From our morning information briefing to a weekly Good Information E-newsletter, get the perfect of The Week delivered on to your inbox.
Martin was elected chair of the DFL in 2011 and likewise “leads the Affiliation of State Democratic Committees, a physique that lobbies for state events inside the nationwide committee,” stated the Instances. As chair, he has created a “celebration devoted to organizing communities, empowering the grassroots, electing progressive candidates and bettering the lives of Minnesotans,” in accordance with his DFL biography.
DNC management
Martin was elected DNC chair by incomes a majority of 246 of the 428 votes solid — greater than “100 votes above the second place finisher, Wisconsin Democratic Social gathering chair Ben Wikler,” stated NBC Information. However whereas the celebration is working to coalesce round a brand new message, the “race hinged extra on the candidates’ organizing and fundraising resumes than on their postures relating to the ideological soul of the celebration.”
In vying for the job, Martin has been “vocal in declaring that Democrats have a branding drawback with voters, arguing many individuals do not suppose Democrats characterize the celebration taking up the priorities of People,” stated The Hill. Whereas Democrats intention to reorganize themselves forward of the midterms, one factor Martin will probably be “charged with overseeing is the 2028 Democratic presidential early major calendar as leaders throughout the states have began to weigh in on who must be within the early lineup.”
Martin has additionally been working to color himself favorably within the eyes of working-class voters, lots of whom shunned Democrats within the final election. He “solid himself as a pal of labor and the son of a single mom who grew up in poverty and might convey the working class again into the celebration in each pink and blue states,” stated The Minnesota Star Tribune.
He has additionally “promised a ‘massive tent’ strategy and drew endorsements from each left-leaning and extra average officers,” stated the Instances. Martin famous throughout his marketing campaign that Democrats had not misplaced a statewide race in Minnesota underneath his management. Democrats “have one combat. The combat’s not in right here. The combat’s on the market,” Martin stated in his victory speech. The “combat is for our values. The combat is for working individuals. The combat proper now could be in opposition to Donald Trump and the billionaires who purchased this nation.” Democrats “should rebuild” their coalition.
