Ken Martin wins election as the next chair of the Democratic National Committee
Ken Martin, the longtime leader of the state Democratic Party organization in Minnesota, will be the new Democratic National Committee chair after winning Saturday’s election, as his party looks to turn the page and recover from a dismal 2024.
Ken Martin, the longtime leader of the state Democratic Party organization in Minnesota, will be the new Democratic National Committee chair after winning Saturday’s election, as his party looks to turn the page and recover from a dismal 2024.
Martin had been the front-runner from the beginning of the race, leveraging his relationships with the more than 400 voting members of the DNC that he forged over more than a decade of work inside the institutional Democratic Party. And those relationships proved essential, as he clinched a majority of the voting members on the first ballot, more than 100 votes above the second place finisher, Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler.
The race hinged more on the candidates’ organizing and fundraising resumes than on their postures regarding the ideological soul of the party, as it did in 2017, after President Donald Trump’s previous election win. Martin was the more experienced hand with deep party relationships, Wikler had been at the center of some of Democrats’ highest-profile races in recent years, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley had unique electoral and government experience.
Addressing the DNC membership after his victory, Martin called for party unity after a relatively quiet race that got chippy at times, and for the party to focus on opposing President Donald Trump.
"We have one team, the Democratic Party, and we have one fight. The fight’s not in here, it’s out there,” he said.
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