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Four prominent current and former Congressional Black Caucus members endorsed Martin O’Malley’s bid to chair the Democratic National Committee on Monday as the contest heads into the home stretch.
The new endorsements came from Marcia Fudge, of Ohio, who was secretary of housing and urban development in the Biden administration and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus when she was in Congress; Rep. Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi, the former chair of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol; and Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, of Missouri. All are backing O’Malley, as is Congressional Black Caucus Institute board member Lacy Johnson. In a statement provided first to NBC News, the Black leaders said, “Democrats are at a crossroads and we need a change agent now.”
O’Malley called the news a “high honor” in a statement.
O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland who ran for president in 2016 and most recently was head of the Social Security Administration, is centering his pitch to lead the national party committee on kitchen-table issues and his operational expertise.
The endorsements come with less than a month to go in the campaign for DNC chair. Last week, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, threw his backing behind another DNC hopeful, Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler. Schumer is, so far, the highest-ranking Democrat to have made his preference known in the five-way contest.
The field also includes Ken Martin, a DNC vice chair who leads the Minnesota state party; James Skoufis, a New York state senator; and several others without experience in elected office or leading a state party, like Marianne Williamson, the author and two-time long-shot presidential candidate.
DNC members will elect the new chair Feb. 1 in Baltimore. Multiple candidate forums are set to begin this week, with candidates required to submit signatures from at least 40 DNC members by later this month to qualify to compete.
Ali Vitali is a Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News, based in Washington. She is the author of “Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House … Yet.”
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