DNC chair fron­trun­ner offers ‘uncom­fort­able’ advice to Democ­rats after crush­ing loss to Trump

The can­di­date con­sid­ered the fron­trun­ner in the race to chair the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee is propos­ing a “mas­sive nar­ra­tive and brand­ing project” to boost the par­ty’s image in the wake of last mon­th’s elec­tion loss­es.

Min­neso­ta Demo­c­ra­t­ic-Farmer-Labor Par­ty chair Ken Mar­tin, a DNC vice chair who has led the asso­ci­a­tion of state Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty chairs, on Tues­day unveiled a 10-point memo titled “A New DNC Frame­work.”

Mar­t­in’s memo calls on Democ­rats to “show up in non­tra­di­tion­al and uncom­fort­able media spaces on a reg­u­lar basis, increase out­reach to local mes­sen­gers and trust­ed val­ida­tors, and cre­ate our own plat­forms for authen­tic engage­ment.”

Democ­rats suf­fered major set­backs up and down the bal­lot in the 2024 elec­tions, as for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump recap­tured the White House, and the GOP flipped the Sen­ate and held onto their frag­ile major­i­ty in the House. 

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The Trump cam­paign and Repub­li­cans’ aggres­sive strat­e­gy of appear­ances on pod­casts and oth­er non-tra­di­tion­al media is cred­it­ed, in part, for the gains they made in win­ning the sup­port of work­ing class, minor­i­ty, younger and low-propen­si­ty vot­ers.

Mar­tin, who is court­ing state Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty offi­cials this week as they hud­dle in Phoenix, Ari­zona, is also call­ing for themes oth­ers in the par­ty have pushed, includ­ing com­pet­ing in all 57 states and ter­ri­to­ries.

“If we’re going to be a nation­al par­ty, we need to com­pete every­where,” Mar­tin empha­sizes.

He also calls for year-round orga­niz­ing in every coun­ty in the coun­try, con­test­ing races all the way down the bal­lot, and ener­giz­ing youth mobi­liza­tion.

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Mar­tin lament­ed that “the major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans now believe the Repub­li­can Par­ty best rep­re­sents the inter­ests of the work­ing class and the poor, and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty is the par­ty of the wealthy and the elites. It’s a damn­ing indict­ment on our par­ty brand.”

And he urged that “we must be will­ing to dig deep and recen­ter the Demo­c­ra­t­ic agen­da to unite fam­i­lies across race, age, back­ground, and class.”

Mar­tin unveiled his plan on the same day that DNC chair Jaime Har­ri­son released a memo high­light­ing that the par­ty’s down-bal­lot vic­to­ries last month offer a road map to greater elec­toral suc­cess in the future.

Har­ri­son is not seek­ing a sec­ond straight four-year term steer­ing the nation­al par­ty com­mit­tee. The next chair will be cho­sen by the rough­ly 450 vot­ing mem­bers of the nation­al par­ty com­mit­tee when they meet at the begin­ning of Feb­ru­ary at Nation­al Har­bor in Mary­land for the DNC’s win­ter meet­ing.

Mar­tin appears to be the ear­ly fron­trun­ner in the race, and his cam­paign says he has the back­ing of at least 100 DNC vot­ing mem­bers, which is near­ly half of what a can­di­date needs to secure the chair.

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Also run­ning and con­sid­ered com­pet­i­tive is Ben Wik­ler, who’s chaired the state Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in bat­tle­ground Wis­con­sin for five years and is well known by the vot­ing mem­bers.

“Today, the coun­try we love needs the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to be stronger. To unite. To fight. And to win,” Wik­ler empha­sized on Sun­day in a video as he launched his bid.

A par­ty insid­er who asked to remain anony­mous to speak more freely told Fox News that “the DNC insiders/establishment have sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence over this mem­ber­ship, so the race will be very close.”

Mar­tin O’Mal­ley, the for­mer two-term Mary­land gov­er­nor and 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date who served as com­mis­sion­er of the Social Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion the past year, jumped into the race last week, a day before Mar­tin.

Also run­ning are New York state Sen. James Skoufis and for­mer U.S. Sen­ate can­di­date from Mary­land Robert Hou­ton.

The field of five DNC chair can­di­dates is expect­ed to grow.

As Fox News and oth­er news orga­ni­za­tions report­ed last month, Rahm Emanuel, the ambas­sador to Japan, has been qui­et­ly reach­ing out to DNC com­mit­tee mem­bers as he con­tem­plates a bid. Emanuel is a for­mer two-term Chica­go may­or who ear­li­er served as White House chief of staff in Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s admin­is­tra­tion and as a mem­ber of Con­gress.

Also eye­ing the chair are for­mer New York State assem­bly mem­ber Michael Blake, Michi­gan state Sen. Mal­lo­ry McMor­row, and Chuck Rocha, a Demo­c­ra­t­ic strate­gist who describes him­self as “non-col­lege-edu­cat­ed Mex­i­can red­neck.”

A DNC vot­ing mem­ber grant­ed anonymi­ty to speak more freely told Fox News, “I’m open to talk­ing to whomev­er is inter­est­ed in this, to lis­ten to their vision and plan, and lis­ten to peo­ple’s dif­fer­ent takes on what we need to do.”

“I think the race is wide open,” the mem­ber added.