Oxon Hill, Md. (AP) – The Democrats elected Ken Martin on Saturday, the party leader in Minnesota, as a national president, turning to a low -profile Midwest political agent to coordinate their resistance to the presidency of Donald Trump.
Martin succeeds Jaime Harrison de Caroline du Sud at the top of the National Democratic Committee. Harrison did not look for another mandate after the 2024 elections when Trump became the first Republican to win the popular vote in two decades and made modest gains with the main democratic constituencies – African -Americans, Latinos and workers’ voters, among them.
“We were struck in the mouth in November,” said Martin, 51, on Saturday. “It’s time to get off the carpet, dust us and take up this fight.”
He is now one of the most important actors in the attempt to return from the Democratic Party while Trump pushes the limits of the presidential power.
The vote took place in the suburbs of Washington while more than 400 members of the DNC of each American state and territory met for the party’s winter meeting.
Martin and the other leading competitor, the president of the Wisconsin party, Ben Wikler, promised to refocus the democratic message on the voters of the working class, to strengthen democratic infrastructure across the country and to improve the system rapid anti-Trump response of the party.
They undertook not to avoid the dedication of democrats to diversity and minority groups, a pillar of the modern party. Martin is the first white man to direct the DNC since 2011.
Martin O’malley, a former governor of Maryland and head of the Biden administration, and Faiz Shakir, managed the Governor of Maryland and Official of the Biden Administration, and Faiz Shakir, who directed the last presidential campaign of the senator Vermont Bernie Sanders.
The candidate Marianne Williamson, activist and author, surprised the members of the DNC before the start of the vote by approving Martin as “our best chance of reducing the court with the corruption funded by the billionaire who will obstruct and limit our possibilities.”
Most candidates have recognized that the democratic brand was seriously damaged, but few promised fundamental changes. Indeed, almost three months after the elections, there is little agreement on what was really wrong.
The election took place less than two weeks after the inauguration of Trump. Democrats find it difficult to face the volume of decrees, pardons, personnel changes and controversial relations taking shape in the new administration.
According to a Quinnipiac university, only 31% of voters have a favorable opinion on the Democratic Party, survey Released this week. Forty-three percent of voters have a favorable opinion on the Republican Party.
Shakir called for scanning changes within the party, such as more coordination with unions and less concentration on minority groups sorted by race and sex. The only Muslim looking for the presidency, Shakir was alone during a recent candidate forum to oppose the creation of a Muslim caucus at the DNC.
But his candidacy was struggling to gain ground.
Wikler faced questions about his relationship with Democratic Donor Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co -founder of LinkedIn. But he threw his fundraising links as an asset. Indeed, President DNC is expected to raise tens of millions of dollars to help Democrats gain elections.