After a Devastating Loss, Democrats Are Struggling to Find a New Leader

Behind closed doors, the Dems are torn over the future of party leadership.

DNC Convention Signs
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Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

DNC Convention Signs

The Democratic Party is reorganizing after a hellish election season and a series of high-profile blunders that resulted in a Hillary Clinton loss and Donald Trump win. And while there are plenty of questions to answer regarding why the party lost such a high-stakes race, the Democrats’ first order of business is electing a new leader—an activity tangled in debates over the party’s path forward.

The Democratic National Committee picks a new chairperson every presidential election year. This year might be harder than most, though, because the Dems not only lost the presidential election but went through a campaign season that included a tense primary contest and convention, the hacking of its emails by the Russian government, the resignation of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz for impropriety exposed in the emails, and interim chair Donna Brazile taking herself out of consideration for the chairmanship after the hacked emails revealed that she’d shared CNN debate questions with the Clinton campaign.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

In the wake of all of that, members of the DNC are set to convene in late February— between February 23 and 26, 2017— for the party’s Winter Meeting. The DNC’s 447 members— mostly individuals elected to membership by their state parties—will pick during the meeting from a field of party members who have thrown their hats in for chairperson. A simple majority of 224 votes is all that’s required to be elected party chair.

This process hasn’t been widely reported, but it’s underway with some candidates having already entered the race and others declaring their intentions to do so. 

Former governor of Vermont and former DNC chair Howard Dean is in the running, along with South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison. By far, the candidate who has generated the most buzz, though, is Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison.

Keith Ellison and Bernie Sanders

“The real problem for Democrats is we’ve got to help people believe, and then we’ve got to deliver the message to them,” Ellison told CNN last week as he made his case for leadership. “Believe what? That we are absolutely, unshakably on their side and we’re going to fight for them every single minute.”

Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to Congress and the first black American to have been elected to the U.S. House from Minnesota, has received support from party bigwigs including  Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. With party leaders like those behind him, it might be expected that Ellison’s election as DNC chair will be a coronation. According to the report from The New York Times, however, Ellison doesn’t yet have the support of perhaps the most powerful Democrat in the party— President Obama.

The Times reported last week that influential Democrats close to the president are “uneasy” with Ellison and are looking for an alternative candidate to back. In fact, President Obama’s team is reportedly encouraging former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm to run as well as United States Secretary of Labor Tom Perez.

Neither has made statements on whether they’ll run or not, but according to the Times, Obama’s team is pursuing Granholm and Perez as alternative candidates due to concerns over Ellison’s busy full-time job as a representative, his liberal politics, and close relationship with Bernie Sanders.

With three months to go before the Democrats vote, there’s still plenty of time for other candidates to enter the race. But regardless of who gets the job of chairperson, it appears the decision will come down to the usual party tensions—the tug of war between the DNC’s moderate and liberal wings. 

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