Updated February 01, 2025 at 14:00 PM ET
After a low-key election among Democratic National Committee voting members, a majority chose Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair as their incoming chair of the party.
Ken Martin emerged as an early frontrunner in the race, garnering significant support, but challenges from Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley indicated there were still questions about his leadership within the party.
Ultimately, though, Martin emerged victorious, using his acceptance speech at the DNC Winter Meeting to reiterate that the Democrats will not be a divided party under his tenure: "We have one team, one team, the Democratic Party. We have one fight, one fight. The fight's not in here."
Martin takes over as the party out of power in Washington looks to recalibrate its direction after President Trump's return to office.
Martin will inherit a national party apparatus that has touted record fundraising, as well as record investments in data and organizing resources that has led to more coordinated infrastructure with state and local Democrats.
But he also takes over at a time when Democrats have to answer for how the party lost in November and create a strategy for how to handle the avalanche of executive actions unleashed by Trump in his first two weeks back in the White House.
Notably, the DNC chair has been a woman and/or person of color since 2011. Martin will be the first white man to lead the national party since now-Sen. Tim Kaine.
Who ran for chair?
Eight people qualified to be on the ballot for DNC chair, including longshot presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, Sen. Bernie Sanders' former campaign manager Faiz Shakir and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.
But the general consensus among voting members was the choice was between Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin or Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler.
Of the 428 votes cast, Martin won 246.5 while Wikler won 134.5 and O'Malley won 44. The remaining 3 votes went to other candidates.
What about other offices?
DNC members will also elect a treasurer, secretary and national finance chair, a vice chair for civic engagement and voter participation and three vice chair candidates.
The party's rules also state that "DNC Officers are as equally divided as practicable according to gender," which means candidates for the three vice chair positions may be restricted based on who wins the other positions.
At the in person forum in Detroit in January, the more substantive discussions included vice-chair candidates and there was more criticism of Biden for running for reelection before dropping out of the race with less than three months until the election.
Joe Paolino, a former mayor of Providence, R.I. mayor, said Biden did a "great job" in his first term, but had he not run again, "then there could have been a primary and we could have gone through that vetting process."
Gun control activist David Hogg said the party had a problem with anyone who called for Biden to step aside before he ultimately made the decision.
"We are not a cult, we should not be a cult," he said. "Increasingly we are becoming a party of subtraction, not addition."
Who voted for DNC leadership?
There are currently 448 voting members of the DNC, and while there is no official public list of names, more than half of the voting population comes from the chair, vice chair and national committee members from each of the states and U.S. territories, as well as Democrats Abroad.
The heads of affiliated groups like the Young Democrats of America are also members. The remainder are at-large members that include longtime party figures, union leaders and others with ties to former President Joe Biden.
Copyright 2025 NPR
