National & Minnesota
Recasting the future of the Democratic Party will take shape largely on February 1, 2025 at its winter Democratic Nation Committee (DNC) meeting, at the National Harbor in Maryland. The event starts on January 30th and culminates with the Chair’s election on February 1st.
Since there is a local twist on this story, we’ll start with DFL Party Chair Ken Martin, who has announced his entrance in the race for DNC Chair. As Minnesota’s longest serving Democratic Farmer-Labor (DFL) Chair, he knows the national party very well and locally has faced different challenges such as the incursion of the Democratic Socialists as a factor of to be addressed and we believe eliminated from party ranks. He has show himself to be a prolific fundraiser and in his first term of office had to resolve a significant debt left to him, by his predecessor Brian Melendez, who clearly couldn’t raise a Plug Nickle and left the DFL Party with a sizable $700,000 debt upon his departure.
Martin does have a worthy network in the Democratic Party nationally, being three times elected as President of the Association of State Democratic Committees by State Party Chairs and Vice Chairs, even being unanimously elected the last time. If he is able to capitalize on these relationships, which make up a significant portion of the Democratic National Committee delegates which are less than 500, he should be in a fairly strong position due to the personally established connections.
CBS National-Minnesota DFL chair Ken Martin announces bid to lead DNC
CBS Local WCCO-Minnesota DFL’s Ken Martin on running to chair DNC
CNN-Candidate for DNC chair on how Democrats can win again
His announced opponents include former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and his Wisconsin Party Chair colleague Ben Wikler.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/25/ben-wikler-dnc-chairman/
Barack Obama Campaign Manager David Axelrod floated the name of current Japanese Ambassador and former Congressman Rahm Emanuel. We also have heard Vice-President Kamala Harris Co-Chair and former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu in addition to political consultant Chuck Rocha, who was convicted of embezzling money from the United Steelworkers Union. He also had an interesting personally advantageous tactic of holding meetings in the host city on the Monday following the Super Bowl. This meant, he could get the union to pay for his expenses to each place, which was hyper-expensive on the Union Dime.
We saw this online poll on the Hill, which is somewhat interesting, but really has no significant impact on the outcome, because the DNC election is an in-house contest.
Who would you most like to see as the next DNC chair?
Ken Martin 13%
Martin O’Malley 7%
Rahm Emanuel 13%
Ben Wikler 20%
Other / No opinion 47%
Now, the question is who can count up to the simple majority needed to secure this victory. It might behoove the Rules to incorporate Ranked Choice Voting, which we would support because its not a ballot in a General Election, but rather a party process, with the potential of multiple candidates, which could be streamlined down to two in one ballot.