Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
Vice President Kamala Harris greets Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison at DNC headquarters on Election Day, November 5, 2024, in Washington.
Between now and the 2028 primary season, the Democratic Party will have no dominant face. Senate leader Chuck Schumer and House leader Hakeem Jeffries are debatably effective caucus chiefs, but far from national figures. Kamala Harris, having badly lost a winnable election, is no more credible as party leader than Hillary Clinton was after 2016. And it’s far too early for there to be a front-runner for 2028.
One early test of the party’s future direction will be the election of a new chair of the Democratic National Committee, to be held in late February or early March. The current chair, Jaime Harrison of South Carolina, will be stepping down. Harrison was the protégé of James Clyburn, whose effusive endorsement helped President Biden win key Southern primaries and the 2020 nomination.
During Biden’s term, the DNC was closely controlled by the White House. All key decisions, including changes in the primary calendar, were made by Biden’s political people, with the DNC acting as a rubber stamp. Its support for state parties was meager, while the White House hoovered up vast sums of donor money.
White House control has long been the unfortunate norm whenever Democrats have the presidency. You have to go back to the inspired term of Howard Dean (2005–2009) to find a creative party chair who was serious about party-building in all 50 states. Dean helped turn red states purple. His work in red states also helped Barack Obama secure the 2008 nomination, since it was in red states where Obama won more primaries. Obama rewarded Dean by firing him and bringing in his own loyalists.
The party becomes far more important when Democrats are in opposition. But even then, the party establishment seeks to keep control.
After the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016, progressives nearly elected one of their own, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a close ally of Bernie Sanders, who had a similar vision as Dean. But then the Obama-Clinton people swooped in and mounted a successful campaign for Tom Perez, Obama’s outgoing secretary of labor. The election was so close (Perez won by six votes) that the Perez faction had to concede several process reforms, as well as de facto roles for Ellison (as something close to a co-chair) and Sanders ally Larry Cohen.
This time, Harris and her coterie are likely to have less influence than usual as kingmakers, though the establishment will surely lurk in the background.
With the 2028 presidential nomination up for grabs and a vacuum of national party leaders, the DNC post could look attractive as a launching pad.
Several names are being mentioned for the new party chair. Two people are actively taking soundings: Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia and longtime voter registration organizer; and Ken Martin, the Minnesota state party chair who also chairs the national association of state party organizations. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is said to be interested. Party donors are in conversation with several others, which would continue an unfortunate trend.
Two people whose names have been prominently mentioned are Ben Wikler, the widely admired Wisconsin state party chair; and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. According to my sources, Wikler is said to have ruled the job out. Brown is not running but might consider it. (UPDATE: A separate source indicates that Wikler is also considering a run.)
For those who want to reduce the influence of billionaire money in the Democratic Party in favor of sorely needed working-class appeal, Brown would be a fine choice. Brown kept defying the odds to win election in red Ohio until a wave election did him in. He has favored tough financial regulation. The Ohio Senate race looked to be tied until the crypto industry dumped $40 million into the campaign to defeat Brown.
As a victim of dark money, Brown would be an important force for resisting the influence of billionaires on the people’s party. Whatever problems the Democratic candidate had in 2024, money wasn’t one of them. On the contrary, coziness with billionaires muddied the message.
If Brown doesn’t get in, Martin and Abrams would be the front-runners. Despite Abrams’s strong national reputation as one who knows how to increase voter registration and turnout, a lot of DNC politics is inside baseball. Martin would have wide support of other state party chairs, who directly or indirectly control more than half the votes on the DNC. He also begins with the support of both Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the state’s attorney general, Ellison, the leader of Sanders forces on the DNC.
There’s one other complication. In recent years, the party chair has been viewed as a full-time job in the Howard Dean mold, not a part-time gig for a sitting governor or member of the House or Senate, or for someone contemplating his own run for office. Since 2020, the DNC post pays $250,000 a year.
The party job has never been a stepping stone to the presidency. But with the 2028 presidential nomination up for grabs and a vacuum of national party leaders, the DNC post could look attractive as a launching pad. After all, it comes with a nice salary, a huge staff, an ample travel budget, and an opportunity to incur IOUs by sending checks to state parties. Bill Clinton, preparing his 1992 run, did not head the DNC, but he chaired the center-right surrogate party, the Democratic Leadership Council, with a salary and staff.
New Jersey’s Phil Murphy was serious about running for president until he looked like a fool by trying and failing to launch his wife as a Senate candidate. A Murphy run for chair of the DNC would likely be aimed at resurrecting a presidential campaign. He’d be a far weaker candidate than Abrams, Martin, or Brown.
Pete Buttigieg also has his eye on higher office. He made a run at the DNC job in 2016 and lost. He might also try again.
After a presidential candidate blows a winnable election and treats the party as just an appendage, the DNC has been willing to take a chance on a leader who stands for both substantive and process reform, as well as serious party-building. That was the story with Howard Dean in 2004 and very nearly with Keith Ellison in 2020.
That’s what the party needs now. It does not need a party leader whose main goal is to promote their own candidacy for higher office. To the extent that the DNC leader is a face of the party, that should not be an agent of billionaires.
