Ken Martin and Ben Wikler from the midwest are favorites as party aims to recapture Congress and White House. As Republicans prepare to seize the reins of power in Washington, a low-profile race to head the Democrats’ national governing body is being flagged up as the first milestone on the party’s agonising road to electoral recovery.
Two middle-aged men from the northern midwest have been tipped as frontrunners to succeed the outgoing Jaime Harrison as chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), a post from which the groundwork for the recapture of Congress and the White House is expected to be undertaken.
They are Ken Martin, 51, of Minnesota and Ben Wikler, 43, of Wisconsin, both leaders of the Democrats in their respective states. The DNC will elect its new leader on 1 February. Neither appears to have generated widespread excitement, according to party elders, and only Wikler has attracted the endorsement of a leading Democrat. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, has thrown his support behind Wikler.
“Had Kamala [Harris] or [Joe] Biden made a call and said, ‘Look, we want to rally around X, Y and Z,’ I may have taken an interest in someone,” Donna Brazile, a veteran DNC member and previous interim party chair, told the New York Times. “Other than giving state parties more resources, which is as old as the Republic itself, I haven’t heard anything new.”.
