David Hogg exits DNC

Last month, the DNC’s rules and bylaws committee recommended that the full party vote to hold new elections, siding with Democratic activist Kalyn Free, who’d lost the Feb. 1 election for vice chair. On Wednesday afternoon, the DNC announced that the party had voted to approve Free’s challenge by a 294-99 margin, and would hold new elections on the grounds that the Feb. 1 vote had violated its rules.

In the new election, under the party’s gender parity rules, one vice chair slot would be reserved for a male candidate, and one slot could go to a candidate of any gender. Malcolm Kenyatta, who was elected to the male vice chair slot on Feb. 1, had won more votes than Hogg that day; Hogg won the second slot over Free and two other female candidates.

The re-vote loomed as much more difficult for Hogg. On Thursday, California DNC members held a call about their plans for this week’s votes. Most did not favor holding a new election. But if one was held, several members who had supported Hogg before intended to support someone else, with several favoring Washington state Democratic chair Shasti Conrad, the runner-up to Hogg in February.

“I appreciate that DNC members wanted to rectify the issues with balloting in the previous election,” Conrad told Semafor. “I’m looking forward to putting this all behind us, and getting back to the work of electing Democrats.”

On Sunday, Politico published audio of a May 15 meeting between DNC officers, including Hogg, where Martin said that the vice chair had “essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to” at a crucial time for the party. Hogg denied being the source of the leak, but that weakened his position with party members further, with several saying on the record, and on social media, that Hogg could not be trusted.

That led to Wednesday’s lopsided online vote for a new election. Candidates who had competed for the roles in February were allowed to run again, and to submit one-minute videos making their cases. According to several DNC members, Hogg was the only potential candidate who did not submit a video.

The online election for the male vice chair role will be held as scheduled, ending on Saturday. Kenyatta will be the only candidate on the ballot, and the election for the other vice chair role will be held between Sunday and Tuesday.

Got all that?

Hogg’s win on Feb. 1 came at the end of a long day when DNC members agreed to rush their final vote and get it over with. No one in the room expected this to happen next.

Hogg had been clear that he co-led The Future We Deserve, a PAC that spent money to elect Democratic candidates. Free had filed her challenge to the vote weeks later. But not until April 15, when Shane Goldmacher of The New York Times reported that the PAC could spend money on primary challengers, did this explode into a controversy.

Martin, who himself had once endorsed candidates as the chair of Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, was dead set on a rule banning party members from doing that in the future. This was, in part, a legacy of the 2016 presidential primary, where Hillary Clinton’s early support from party members infuriated supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who called the primary rigged — even though Clinton would end up with more votes and more delegates elected in the primaries and caucuses.

Ahead of the 2020 primary, Democrats changed their rules to prevent “superdelegates” (DNC members not elected in primaries) from voting on the first ballot at a national nominating convention. And before the 2024 primary, the DNC voted to endorse Joe Biden as its nominee — a decision that complicated things for any potential Biden challenger, and the three who did run. A few states opted not to hold primaries altogether, pledging their delegates to Biden — who, of course, ended up bowing out before the convention, after the most damaging debate in the history of presidential elections.

When will Democrats get past the party’s internal struggles, all of them distractions from the work of opposing the Trump administration and beating Republicans? Today, they hope. The Hogg drama really didn’t have any effect on Democrats’ ability to win elections this year, like Wisconsin’s state supreme court race and an Iowa state Senate election that flipped back a GOP-held seat.

As Martin said on the call, obtained by Politico’s Holly Otterbein, the story made Democrats look bad, distracted from their work, and made life easier for Republicans. But Hogg made his point, one that a lot of Democrats do agree with: There are a great many elderly incumbents who aren’t doing much for the party, and they create problems for the people they want to serve when they die in office instead of letting new talent rise up.