Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin stepped into his role in early 2025. He said last year it’s the “political equivalent of being a fire hydrant. You get pissed on by everyone.” That might be partially his own fault. The committee, under his leadership, is $2 million in debt. Their physical headquarters have been put up for collateral in a last-ditch attempt to obtain a line of credit. And Martin threw his phone at a junior aide in a fit of frustration at the beginning of the month, resulting in an HR investigation.
Tensions heightened at the DNC in May, when the long-awaited autopsy of the 2024 election loss was released – a typo-filled report with no solid thesis and notable absences of relevant details. There were few references to former president Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection and subsequent withdrawal, and no mention of Israel or Gaza. The report resulted in in-fighting among the DNC and almost lost Martin his position.
It “was a major mistake. I own it,” he told Politico at the time. But “now it’s time for us to move forward at the DNC, and I hope that you’ll move forward with me.”
But is he ready to move forward? “He’s been super paranoid,” a DNC source told NOTUS, as evidenced by a recent decision for members to sign NDAs when attending a meeting about the committee’s financial circumstances.
One piece of that financial puzzle that was not initially released to the public was the DNC’s decision to put its physical headquarters up as collateral last year to obtain a $15 million line of credit. It’s a move that’s been used in the past leading up to major election seasons, but the lack of transparency raised concerns.
One member of the committee told NOTUS that “Ken gaslighting us about the DNC’s finances and not being transparent about the financial situation makes us doubt if he can oversee the DNC during the most important primary of our lifetime.”
“He’s not in a great place at all,” said another source close to Martin. “I’m very concerned.”
Martin has also largely disappeared from the public eye in the past few months, with his only recent television interview being on local news in Erie, Pennsylvania. But last week, he started a Substack account and published a 3,000-word op-ed confronting the accusations that he is mishandling the committee.
“There is a story being told about the Democratic National Committee that is simply wrong,” Martin wrote. “According to that story, the DNC is not raising money and its financial position is evidence that the party is failing.”
Trying to prove that debt is not equivalent to failure, Martin describes other types of power he believes the DNC wields. He claims “historic” campaign results, with “victories or overperformances [for the Democratic party] in 90 percent of key races since Trump was elected.” He also reports that “the current DNC has raised the most money of any DNC without the White House in the 198-year history of the Democratic party.”
Still, it hasn’t been enough to pull the organization out of debt. And the excuses feel even flimsier in the face of the Republican National Committee’s $125 million in the bank, on top of President Trump’s super PAC valued at almost $400 million.
“Today the DNC is spiraling towards irrelevance,” Rufus Gifford, who has worked for the DNC in eight major campaign cycles since 2004, described on his Substack. “I am not minimizing the rest of the critical work done by the DNC – there is plenty – but unless you have money and a message for folks to invest in, you don’t have a party.”
Rather than offering a solution to the dire financial situation, Martin spent most of his op-ed describing a new political model he hopes to implement, one that avoids a “boom-and-bust” cycle and instead maintain the infrastructure constructed during election season to build a campaign that runs year-round to create and promote political information.
“Voters encounter messages through social media, creators, podcasts, local news, groupchats, streaming platforms, community organizations, workplaces, churches, schools, and friends,” Martin writes. “And Republicans do not wait until September of an election year to define Democrats. They do it every single day.”
The question is how such an extensive political model could be implemented by an organization that is currently seriously in the red. Martin’s attempt to respond to voter concerns falls flat by painting a project that, in the current straits, the DNC would be ill-equipped to complete. Maybe he should focus, for now, on fundraising and keeping the lights on in the headquarters building.
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