Ken Martin, president of the Minnesota-Farmer-Labor-Labor-Labor party party, won the crowded race on Saturday to become the next president of the National Democratic Committee.
This decision provides Martin with a powerful perch to determine the messaging and trajectory of a party which is still in shock from its in -depth losses in the November elections and confronting four years more leadership of Donald Trump.
Martin managed to win the majority of the support of the members of the Committee, who met National Harbor, Maryland, to fill out several key leadership roles. Martin won the first ballot, capturing 246.5 votes from the 428 voting bulletins; Its closest competitor – Ben Wikler, president of the Wisconsin Democratic Party – won 134.5 votes on the first ballot.
“Thank you to the members of the DNC who put their faith in my vision for our party,” said Martin in his victory speech.
“We are going to go to work. We will fight; We are going to go there and take this fight to Donald Trump and the Republicans, and we will fight for workers again in this party. »»
A longtime head of state with in -depth links in the National Democratic Committee, Martin inherits a party that seems disillusioned and discouraged following Trump’s victory. The outgoing president, Jaime Harrison de Caroline du Sud, chose not to ask for his re -election after the party lost not only the White House, but the two chambers of the Congress in the November elections.
Martin came out victorious from a crowded field of candidates who largely agreed with the main structural and reputation challenges facing the Democratic Party while Trump begins his second mandate at the White House. Most of the chair candidates highlighted the need to reconnect with the Americans in the working class who have strongly moved to the right and to find more effective ways to communicate their values to voters.
Martin supporters praised his victory as a promising first step to rebuild the party and win the young and workers’ communities, where Trump made a strong breakthrough in November. Martin’s first major test will come next year, while Democrats are trying to regain control of the House of Representatives, where the Republicans currently have a close advantage.
“Ken Martin leading the DNC is a big step to build a party that can energize young voters and voters of the working class so that we can defeat the extreme right,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, political director of the group of Young Sunrise Movement Sunrise. “Under Ken Martin, the DFL of Minnesota won a trifecta and immediately pursued a populist program that should have created a model for the Democrats nationwide.”
But Wikler supporters expressed a strong disappointment in the face of his loss, supervising Martin’s victory as a perpetuation of a dangerous status quo which still damaged the brand of the Democratic Party with the voters.
“This is an initiate game,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, who approved Wikler. “A long -standing initiate has won perfectly, but we have missed a transformational leader at a time when we have to show voters that Democrats do things differently. Everyone wants Ken the best.
In his victory speech, Martin undertook to unify the Democrats and to incorporate the best ideas of his competitors in the chair race to ensure a stronger party to move forward.
“We are going to bring them to this big party,” said Martin. “We are going to unify this party together, and we will all wrap our sleeves together to build this party.”
We do not know how effective the next president will be in the implementation of her program. In recent years, the Committee has mainly served as an administrative body focused on fundraising, the coordination between the parties of the States and establishes rules for the presidential primaries.
Faiz Shakir, the former campaign director for Bernie Sanders who launched a last -minute campaign and ultimately unsuccessful for the role of president, recently told the Guardian that the committee was to take this opportunity to move in a more daring direction.
“When Democrats have a Democratic president in charge, it is often the case that (the National Democratic Committee) works at the request of the President of the United States,” said Shakir. “But now, when we don’t have the presidency, you take this structure and you say:” What is the most important thing we have to do? “”
Martin will begin to answer this question in the coming days, and his answer will help determine whether the Democrats can again capture the majority of the room in 2026 and finally win back the White House in 2028.
