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Still Think Democrats Aren't Fighting Back? Introducing DNC Chair Ken Martin [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-06-02
Ken Martin, current chair of the DNC, grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he remained until graduating from High School. He then moved on to the University of Kansas, graduating with a BA in Political Science and History in 1996. en.wikipedia.org/...
His first involvement in state politics started in 1990, when he worked for the progressive US Senator Paul Wellstone. The Wellstone campaign had far less money in 1990 than the Republican Senate incumbent, Rudy Boschwitz. “But Wellstone’s emphasis on grassroots organizing ultimately pulled him over the finish line, despite being outspent in the race 7-to-1.” campaignsandelections.com/…
It is from Paul Wellstone, Martin has said, that he learned his most valuable lessons about political campaigns. What he learned is that while fundraising is certainly important, winning means working hard at the grassroots level and fighting for every vote.
He followed that by working on the Clinton/Gore campaign in 1992. He worked on the 2000 Gore campaign in Minnesota as well as John Kerry’s 2004 Minnesota campaign.
Between 2001 and 2011, he worked for the Building Trades Union, as policy aid for Ramsey County Commissioner Susan Haigh, and as executive assistant to Attorney General Mike Hatch. In 2011, he was elected unanimously as the head of the DFL in Minnesota. en.wikipedia.org/...
When Ken Martin took over the Minnesota state party, Republicans controlled both the senate and the House for the first time in forty years. Republican Tim Pawlenty was coming to the end of his eight year reign as a Republican governor. The state party deeply in debt. en.wikipedia.org/...
In 2010, Democrat Mark Dayton won election as governor but the state House and Senate remained in Republican hands. Mark Dayton was left with a 5 billion dollar debt left behind by his Republican Predecessor, Tim Pawlenty, and a Republican congress only interested in austerity. Differences led to a long shutdown that voters blamed on Republicans. In Ken Martin’s first state election in as DFL Chair in 2012, Democrats regained control of both the House and Senate.
Minnesota continues to have close elections at the state level. Under Ken Martin’s chairmanship of the state party apparatus, Democrats had the majority in the Minnesota Senate for six of the last twelve years, the Minnesota House for eight of the past twelve years, and control of the Governorship for all of the past twelve years. As to the DFL, an organization deeply in debt in 2011 had a $2.5 million dollar surplus when he resigned in 2025. ballotpedia.org/...
Ken Martin announced his candidacy for the char of the DNC in December 2024. His main rival was Ben Wikler, head of the DNC in Wisconsin. There was little difference in the vision both had for the DNC. Both talked about fighting in every district, both talked about increasing grassroots organizing, and both talked about both being transparent and aggressive in the fight against Republicans. Although Wikler was able to earn high level endorsements from Move On, PSCC, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, PSCC and Third Way, (en.wikipedia.org/...) Martin won the race handily. And the reason he did is that over his time as head of the DFL in Minnesota, and his time as Head of the Association of State Democratic Chairs, he had developed strong relationships with local groups that were voting for DNC head. In essence, he won because he was known and trusted among the grassroot political organizations of the DNC.
Martin’s vision for the Democratic party included what he called a a “57 State Party Strategy”.
“That means funding parties in all 57 states and territories, expanding resources for the State Partnership Program (SPP), and increasing the Red State Fund to go on offense everywhere in America. In addition, we need to ensure that state party chairs and executive directors are full-time, paid positions.” kenforchair.com/...
He wanted to work towards having functioning Democratic presence in all 3244 counties in the country.
“There are Democrats everywhere who want to work and organize in their communities. Let’s unleash them. We need to ensure there’s Democratic infrastructure in all 3,244 counties in our country – in every ZIP code and every community. We need to be organized everywhere so people can organize everywhere.” kenforchair.com/...
In essence, a “3244 country strategy” or, as he more succintly called it, “Mission 3244”. kenforchair.com/… In working towards that, Ken Martin has visited local Democratic Party officials across the country and, as promised, he increased funding to Red States.
Further, he observed that the DNC cannot just focus on federal races but further needs to partner with groups like the DMO (Democratic Municipal Officials), DMA (Democratic Mayors Association), NDCO (National Democratic County Officials) and DLCC (Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee), to support candidate recruitment, training, and campaigning. To that end, the DNC has engaged in candidate recruitment sessions from Democratic strongholds to states like Alabama.
The day of his election, Ken Martin said,
“The Democratic Party is the party of working people, and it’s time to roll up our sleeves and outcompete everywhere, in every election, and at every level of government — and I look forward to working with this next generation of leadership to build a Party unite America,
But, I know what your asking. What has he done since February 1 (the day of his election) to fight Donald Trump? Let’s look.
As I have noted in prior diaries in this series, fighting Trump means using all available avenues. It means writing op-eds, sitting for interviews with local and national media, giving speeches, meeting with community groups, attending Town Halls, attending protests, and using the Courts.
In the latter case, the DNC recently joined with the DSCC and DCCC to fight in the courts against Republican efforts to damage democratic elections in the country. They have engaged in other legal actions to stop Trump’s authoritarian and anti-constitutional executive orders.
x Today, we joined the @dscc and @dccc in filing a motion with the Supreme Court to prevent billionaires from controlling our elections.
The people should have the loudest voice in our democracy. We won’t allow Republicans to pave the way for the ultra-wealthy to rig it. pic.twitter.com/YPI68arUA1 — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) May 30, 2025
x Today, we beat the Trump administration in court.
Democrats will never waver in defending the right to vote. pic.twitter.com/tLerRXRuDW — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) April 24, 2025
Ken Martin has put the Republicans Big, Abysmal, Abominable Bill in the proper context, for example using Senator Joni Ernst’s recent callous remarks to do so.
x Not giving a shit that your constituents will die just to give more money to druggie billionaires like Elon.
That’s the Republican Party.
https://t.co/peyk7GPDxd — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) May 30, 2025
His messaging has been remarkably consistent. It’s that Trump and the Republican Party do not care about voters, they care only for themselves and for their billionaire friends.
x This guy went to jail for screwing over nurses and doctors at his nursing homes—taking $10 million from their paychecks to buy a yacht.
His mom goes to a $1 million per person fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, and now he’s pardoned.
These are the people Trump looks after. Not you.
https://t.co/vyYkJPAHsK — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) May 27, 2025
x Donald Trump’s priorities while tornado victims continue to wait for aid:
-Ranting about Bruce Springsteen on Truth Social
-Calling for an investigation into Beyoncé
-Yelling at Walmart to eat his tariffs
-Soliciting Qatar to get a luxury jet
https://t.co/G8NEHe85sT — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) May 20, 2025
And he has been extremely, let’s say blunt, in his direct criticisms of Donald Trump.
x Trump and his clown show are back at it- screwing things up with the same reckless incompetence we've come to expect. Are they even trying to fake competence anymore, or is raw chaos just the game plan now? It's infuriating watching this level of stupidity pass for leadership.
https://t.co/6kIKjKVju1 — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) April 19, 2025
x Everything Donald Trump touches turns to shit. He’s the reverse King Midas.
https://t.co/krcqdU53wR — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) April 9, 2025
One of the more successful DNC projects since Trump’s election is helping to organize Town Halls in Republican districts in which Republicans refuse to do so.
x Since I became DNC Chair 100 days ago, we’ve hosted over 100 People’s Town Halls in nearly every state in the country.
Republicans are running scared from their constituents, hiding after enabling Donald Trump’s economic destruction. But Democrats aren’t afraid to show up. — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) May 12, 2025
x Went on @FoxNews today.
My message? If Republicans won’t do their jobs, we will. pic.twitter.com/OV2yCeYnbb — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) May 4, 2025
He also talks about changing strategies in how Democrats communicate to voters, because where people get their news is changing. In this interview with America Votes, he acknowledges that Republicans have done a better job in recruiting, “micro influencers” . This means using smaller, local accounts to push the Republican message. He wants to see Democratic campaigns doing the same.
x A crucial part of our new War Room operation is reimagining the digital space as an organizing space.
Here’s how we’re going to do that: pic.twitter.com/pTCQF0jpER — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) April 9, 2025
Finally, I know that his belief that elected DNC officials should remain neutral is a controversial one. Here is link to a thread he wrote outlining his reasoning.
x In recent weeks, there's been renewed conversation about my longstanding support for a neutrality pledge within the Democratic National Committee.
Here’s a 🧵on why the Democratic Party must stay neutral in primaries. — Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) May 10, 2025
In elections following Trump’s election, Democrats have consistently overperformed. They substantially increased their vote shares in Congressional elections in Florida, defeated a long term Republican for mayor of Omaha, Nebraska, and won the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. Much of that is due to anger at Trump, the Republican Party and, in the case of Wisconsin, the intervention of Elon Musk. But it isn’t just the incompetence and corruption of the Republican Party that resulted in these successes. The DNC aggressively intervened in each of these elections. Ken Martin appeared in each state to support candidates, Ken Martin and Malcolm Kenyatta canvassed door to door for candidate Dan Goughnour, who won his election for the Pennsylvania State House. As noted, they’ve provided increase funding to State Parties. As John Nichols in the Nation wrote,
“You need to seize the moment yourself. And there is mounting evidence that Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin, who has never made his enthusiasm for grassroots organizing a secret, is doing just that.” www.thenation.com/…
I write these profiles because it is important for readers of this site to know that the vast majority of Democrats are committed to fighting back against Trump. I don’t have an issue with individual Democrats being criticized, but when day after day we see multiple stories from both the FP and the Community on perceived Democratic failures, and hardly any stories on Democratic successes, a bias in the community forms. And it is not a bias that leads to the enthusiasm and determination needed to fight against Trump.
We often hear that, “only this person is fighting back” when the fact is most Democrats are working hard to push back against Trump’s ongoing descent into fascism. It is important that we promote and advertise those that are. But these stories need to be told more consistently. Ken Martin is using his position as Chair of the DNC to fight against Trump — from the grassroots level to the Courts. The DNC is hardly a perfect organization, but since Ken Martin’s election it has moved dramatically in the direction that a lot of us on this site have long wanted to see. A Paul Wellstone Democrat has been a welcome addition to the national Democratic Party.
If you want even more information on how Democrats are attacking this illegal and corrupt administration, go seek out Janesaunts diaries “Dems Doing What We Want them to do”, which is published three times a week, and lpeacocks Thursday diaries on the Congressional Black Caucus.
T2 has also just begun a series called the Rainbow Roundup, where focus is placed on LGBTQ lawmakers and journalists. And Billboteach has one focusing on Hispanic elected Democrats.
You can gain easy access to all these diaries by following the Democratic Party Spotlight, where an archive of these diaries can be found www.dailykos.com/...
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