Democrats nationwide struggled over party leadership Friday in the wake of one of the largest political upsets in history.
As RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and President-elect Donald Trump celebrate their win, Democrats have splintered off into different groups to decide who should lead their party.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost big Tuesday — partly due to WikiLeaks’ release of internal emails — and the Democratic Party lost a lot of prestige and respect as well. Proof of collusion between then-party Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Clinton staffers emerged in internal emails leaked in October.
The three Democratic operatives who will probably establish the largest amount of support are former presidential candidate Howard Dean, Sen. Corey Booker, and progressive Rep. Keith Ellison.
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, DNC State Chair of South Carolina Jaime Harrison and New Hampshire DNC Chair Ray Buckley also announced their candidacy.
Dean previously chaired the party from 2005 through 2009, serving when President Barack Obama came to power. “The dems need organization and focus on the young,” Dean tweeted Thursday. “Need a fifty State strategy and tech rehab. I am in for chairman again.”
“I think he’d be a great DNC chair. I worked for him after the ’04 election, very similar situation and what he did was revitalize the party,” former DNC Deputy Executive Director Moses Mercado told Politico.
“He talked about the 50-state strategy that we’ve kind of forgotten, which to his point, I haven’t talked to him since he decided to do this, but this is what he talked about. We’ve got to go to these states. This is exactly what he spoke about 10 years ago. So it’s no surprise to me that he would be great in this position.”
Other Democrats look to Booker, who endlessly campaigned for Clinton. Although Booker hasn’t officially announced his candidacy for the post, he has a large amount of support from black voters and lawmakers, according to Politico.
Then there’s Rep. Keith Ellison — a progressive lawmaker from Minnesota, and is a practicing Muslim. Sen. Bernie Sanders announced his support for the progressive lawmaker Thursday, in a massive endorsement that could mean a lot nationwide.
Regardless of who is selected, Democratic strategists are weary of a “part-time” DNC chair, someone who holds the post while also representing their district.
“What I think his biggest hurdle is is the notion that we will have another part-time chair,” a top Democratic Party official told the Huffington Post.
“It proved to be hugely problematic for a number of reasons this last time around. There are a number of reasons [former chair] Debbie Wasserman Schultz was wrong to begin with. But one of them is she had to pay attention to her work in Congress and any political blind spots she had to deal with.”
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