DNC chair Ken Martin says ‘re-earning trust’ is key to unifying party before midterms

As Democrats reckon with a deep inter-party divide that threatens their ability to repair the party’s image and win back voters, Ken Martin said he not focused on “internal bullshit” because “most people could care less about the internal drama and soap opera of the Democratic party.”

Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, told the Guardian that he knows Democrats have to earn back trust from communities across the country before the midterms.

But, as part of his job leading the party, he has to manage dissenting voices who are trying to chart a way forward for the Democrats after the bruising 2024 loss to Donald Trump. So far, the left is unified in its opposition to Trump – but not on their vision for their own party.

Trump’s spending plan will serve as the uniting force behind the Democratic Party’s push toward the midterms. To that end, the DNC launched an effort to organize at events like book clubs and county fairs to ring the alarm about Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” and tell voters what Democrats stand for, well ahead of the next elections.

Dubbed “organizing summer”, the party is engaging volunteers well before the midterms for on-the-ground meetups with voters. It has sent more money to local and state parties to use in key 2025-26 battlegrounds and is recruiting new leaders in these areas. The party will also restart its partisan voter registration programs, which have been done by third-party nonpartisan groups in recent years.

Martin said one reason voters have lost trust is because the party has only been showing up in the months before an election to ask for a vote, Martin said. Democrats have to put in the work and the face time to re-earn that trust.

“The first conversation that you should have with voters is just listening to them and hearing their hopes and aspirations, and eventually building a relationship of trust around shared values,” he said. “One of the ways we re-earn it is by actually showing them that we give a damn about their community, about their family, being present and having conversations when it’s not a transaction, where we’re asking them to do something for me.”

Martin ran for the DNC spot after leading the Minnesota Democrat-Farmer-Labor party for more than a decade, amassing Democratic wins in the midwestern state. Since he has taken over, a slew of negative headlines have plagued his tenure, over the party’s shaky finances and a battle over primaries.

Martin, as the leader of the party during a rough time for Democrats, takes a lot of hits. He told the Bulwark that the role was the “political equivalent of being a fire hydrant. You get pissed on by everyone.” He has said “a few disgruntled people” were responsible for the internal squabbling, but also acknowledges the party has work to do with voters.

Much of the party’s messaging until the midterms will focus on the destruction of the Trump administration, from the spending bill to aggressive deportations. In Virginia, which holds statewide elections later this year, the party will spend “at least seven figures” and will be “exclusively focused on an economic message that gives people a sense that their better days are ahead of them”, Martin told local media.

As the left navigates how to rebuild itself after 2024 losses, Democrats have searched for answers – did their immigration stances misalign with the general public, or did an embrace of trans rights go too far left? There is not one set theory on why the Democrats lost.

Democrats believe in border security and having “sensible” immigration policies, Martin said, and they believe in protecting trans people from discrimination. Trump’s deportation regime, though, is chaotic and callous, Martin said.

“They’re going around – these thugs, essentially, these armed thugs – rounding up anyone they want off the streets and, without question or due process, essentially bringing them into detention centers and then shipping them off to countries without, again, due process. We still are a country of laws.”

The Trump spending bill provides fodder for Democrats to highlight their values – or, most pointedly, for showing voters why they shouldn’t side with Trump’s party again in 2026. Some of the bill’s deepest cuts won’t go into effect until after the midterms, but Martin says its impacts were already visible in some communities. A Nebraska medical center, for instance, announced it would close because of “anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid”. Food banks are worried about their ability to provide for people, while businesses face uncertainty and could start laying people off, Martin said.

In the wake of their 2024 losses, Democrats have said they need to better inform voters on what they stand for, not just oppose Trump. On the spending bill , they can make the case for providing rural communities with access to healthcare, keeping children fed, and creating jobs in the renewable energy sector, Martin said.

“Everything we’re for is exactly what the American people are for,” Martin said. “This very unpopular bill, it’s not just unpopular with Democrats or independent voters, it’s unpopular with Republicans as well. It’s going to devastate the lives of so many people in so many communities throughout this country.”

To primary or not?

David Hogg, the anti-gun violence activist and Parkland shooting survivor who leads a political action committee called Leaders We Deserve and was a vice-chair at the DNC, clashed with Martin earlier this year over endorsing and financing candidates in primary elections. In an internal call that was leaked to Politico in June, Martin said he was unsure if he wanted to continue with his role and said that Hogg had “essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to”. Hogg eventually left his role after he would have needed to run again for vice-chair.

Martin said primaries are “an important part of democracy”. They hold elected officials accountable, bring in new ideas and perspectives, and allow for new voices, including younger leaders, to emerge. He and Hogg don’t differ on this, he said. Their dispute wasn’t about “personal animus” but an inability to reconcile Martin and the DNC’s pledge of neutrality in primaries with Hogg’s plan to engage directly in primaries while holding a party officer position.

Martin ran on this neutrality pledge; he said it stemmed from the 2016 presidential primary, when some saw the party as tilted in favor of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Many of Sanders’s supporters left the party and haven’t come back, Martin said, because “they were really pissed off that party leaders were going to make the decision” instead of the voters. He instituted a neutrality pledge in the state party in Minnesota. “I believe that no party leader should ever put their thumb on the scale and pick winners or losers in a primary,” Martin said.

“It’s very hard to unify a party when you’re involved in telling people who support other Democrats that their voice doesn’t matter, that they don’t have a say, and that the party bosses are going to make the decision and not them,” Martin said.

And unifying the party – so it can win elections – is Martin’s goal. He frequently cites the need for a “big tent party” that contains the Democrats’ multitudes, including its disagreements. His job is to get the disparate Democratic factions “into the same boat, rowing in the same direction towards the same goal, which is winning, and that’s what I’m doing here at the DNC.

“Get everyone to understand what we need to do to win elections again, so we can actually move on from this national nightmare, which is Donald Trump.”