OXON HILL, Md. – Wisconsin’s Ben Wikler on Saturday fell short in his bid to chair the Democratic National Committee, losing to Ken Martin of Minnesota in the race to lead Democrats through President Donald Trump’s second term in office.
Martin won the DNC chairmanship on the first ballot. Wikler placed second in the voting. Martin is now tasked with charting a new path forward for Democrats following their election losses in November.
“We have one team, the Democratic Party,” Martin, the 51-year-old chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said after the vote. “We have one fight. The fight is not in here. The fight is out there. The fight is for our values. The fight is for working people.”
“The fight right now is against Donald Trump and the billionaires who bought this country,” Martin said. “That’s the fight.”
Wikler after the vote urged his supporters to join him in working with Martin “to ensure that the Democratic Party rises to this moment of crisis in our country.” He said he was “grateful that our whole party has embraced the vision and the values that our campaign lifted up.”
“It’s time to fight for working people, across race and ethnicity, in every corner of the country; to build a permanent campaign that organizes and communicates year-round, in every place and on every platform,” he said.
Wikler, 43, campaigned for national chair largely on his record leading the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. State Democrats won nine of the last 12 statewide races under Wikler’s leadership, and he developed a reputation as a prolific fundraiser, outraising state Republicans by a factor of about 3-to-1 over the past five years.
He garnered support during his campaign from top Democratic leaders in Washington like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. But he ultimately fell short of winning the majority of the 428 DNC members who voted Saturday.
The Madison native will now turn his full attention to the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, set for April 1, that will determine the ideological balance of the state’s high court. Liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford will face off against conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel.
The court’s decisions on issues ranging from abortion to collective bargaining for public employees and Wisconsin’s congressional maps likely hinge on the outcome of the election. The contest will also serve as the first major test of enthusiasm among Democratic and Republican voters in the new Trump era.
It remains unclear whether Wikler will seek reelection as Wisconsin Democrats’ chair when his term expires in June. An aide to Wikler told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Wikler will make his decision after the court race.
Several Wisconsin Democrats, including 3rd Congressional District chairman William Garcia and Democratic operative Joe Zepecki, have been floated as potential candidates to replace Wikler should he not seek reelection. Joe Zepecki, a Democratic operative, is also seriously considering a run.
Wikler in a statement Saturday referred to the court race as the next “critical fight ahead” and added: “Let’s take a breath and get back to work.”
Martin had long been seen as the frontrunner in the low-key DNC race. He entered the contest with strong support among voting members and had already been involved with the committee; he is one of the party’s vice chairs.
The Minnesotan will now lead a party searching for stability after its election losses in November. Democrats lost control of the White House and Senate and failed to regain a majority in the House.
The party must also navigate Trump’s second term in office, which has kicked off at hyper-speed. At a DNC forum Thursday night, none of the eight candidates for chair heading into Saturday said they thought Democrats were sufficiently responding to Trump’s first weeks in office.
“When the Trump agenda fails Americans, which it most certainly will and already has, we have to be there with a legitimate alternative to this chaos,” Martin told Democrats on Saturday.
Wikler’s campaign picked up momentum toward the end of the race as it rolled out endorsements from top Democrats like Pelosi. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Wikler the night before the vote.
Still, there were few notable ideological differences between Wikler and Martin throughout the campaign as both men emphasized the importance of bolstering party infrastructure in all 50 states. They shied away from heated public attacks.
At the DNC forum earlier in the week, Wikler and Martin appeared to agree on many of the questions the candidates received. They both derided the prevalence of dark money in politics and said they opposed accepting money from corporations who did not align with the party’s values. Though they both acknowledged the importance of fundraising in winning elections.
Martin and Wikler also appeared to align on creating a communications “war room” to help Democrats better put out their messages amid Trump’s return to the White House. Wikler has said Democrats cannot let Republicans define them, as they did this past cycle.
“We will scale up what Ben’s doing in Wisconsin at the DNC,” Martin said this week.
Wikler has been seen as a rising star in the party. He began his career in politics volunteering on Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s first congressional campaign and later directed MoveOn.org’s effort to stop Republicans from repealing the Affordable Care Act. In 2019, he became party leader in the country’s most evenly divided battleground state.
On Saturday, Martin won the chairmanship on the first ballot. He received 246.5 votes of the 428 votes cast. Wikler placed second with about 134.5 votes.
The voting took place at the DNC’s winter meeting Saturday at National Harbor, a hotel and convention center just south of Washington, D.C.
Martin in his victory speech told Democrats he would “take the great ideas from all the candidates in this race” and “bring them into this great party.” He said Democrats need to unite and go on offense against Trump.
“We’re going to go out there and take this fight to Donald Trump and Republicans,” Martin said. “And we’re going to fight for working people again in this party.”
(This story was updated to add new information.)
