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The winner of the #DNC chair race will help shape the message and priorities of the Democratic party,
giving them a crucial role in the party’s efforts to win back the House of Representatives in 2026.

The race has attracted a large field of candidates

Two state party chairs
#Ken #Martin of Minnesota
and #Ben #Wikler of Wisconsin
– have emerged as "frontrunners"

The chair candidates have grown punchier as the race draws to a close,
-- and the late entry of #Faiz #Shakir,
who ran #Bernie #Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign,
has injected new energy into the race.

All of the candidates seem to agree that the Democratic party needs to move in a new direction after their 2024 losses, expanding its outreach to the working-class Americans who have lurched to the right in recent years and finding more effective means of communicating their values to voters.

But the candidates have squabbled over the best strategies and prioritization of those goals,
in a display that Shakir said showed a
“lack of ambition and a sense of powerlessness about what the DNC could potentially do”.
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j

The Guardian · DNC to elect new chair as party grapples with how to rebuild after 2024 lossesBy Joan E Greve

♦️DNC Chair #Jaime #Harrison,
a former corporate lobbyist and South Carolina party chair who was tapped to be chair by Joe Biden,
-- is not running for another four years in his position.

Two candidates for DNC chair have announced:

first was former Maryland Gov. #Martin #OMalley, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration,

then Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman #Ken #Martin, a vice chair of the DNC.

Others considering runs include Wisconsin Democratic Party chair #Ben #Wikler;

Democratic strategist #Chuck #Rocha;

former DNC vice chair #Michael #Blake, of New York;

former Chicago mayor #Rahm #Emanuel;

and Michigan state Sen. #Mallory #McMorrow.

Another name in the mixis former Texas Rep. #Beto #ORourke.

readsludge.com/2024/11/26/a-fi

Sludge · A Fight for the Soul of the DNCWith the race for DNC chair underway, we spoke with reform-minded DNC members on banning “dark money” in Democratic primaries and ways for the party to reconnect with voters.
Replied in thread

Cleta Mitchell, who leads Election Integrity Network, served on Trump’s legal team during his attempts to overturn the 2020 election result.

Since 2022, EIN has promoted becoming a poll worker,
directing people to “become part of the election apparatus” in their communities.

EIN affiliates in Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin have made efforts to recruit and train poll workers in 2024.

Mitchell and another EIN leader did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

During a June livestream on the video-sharing platform Rumble,
former Trump Homeland Security official #Ken #Cuccinelli directed an audience of about 10,000 to EIN’s website to sign up as poll workers.

What “can make the most difference without changing the laws,” Cuccinelli said,
“is getting more of our folks inside the polling places,
not as poll watchers,
but as election officials,
the ones who actually sign people in in the poll books,
the ones who actually count the ballots.”

Reached by phone, Cuccinelli said he takes every opportunity to encourage people to become poll workers and often refers them to EIN for training.

His remarks came during regular “election security” livestreams hosted on Rumble by Florida businessman and local Republican Party leader #Steve #Stern.
Stern declined an interview.

In April, #Christina #Norton, director of election integrity for the Republican National Committee, told the livestream audience that
its poll watchers and workers were the “heart of this mission.”

When they encounter problems on Election Day, Norton said,
they should “immediately report that issue back to the Republican headquarters,
back to our war rooms,
and then we are able to answer, mitigate or escalate these problems
to resolve them in real time.”

An RNC spokesperson said Norton meant that only observers should contact the war room
but did not respond to requests for clarification and whether the request asked workers to break the law.

A 'cash crunch' forces Senate Republicans to abandon traditional ads

High ad rates and a Democratic cash advantage have the GOP scrambling

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has canceled all of its planned independent expenditures across the country
and will instead use the money to finance "#hybrid" #ads with its candidates, reports Politico's Ally Mutnick.

The move, she explains is due to a "cash crunch" Republicans are facing thanks to superior fundraising by Democratic candidates.

Thanks to that deficit, the NRSC's shift has been underway for months.

Only the Senate races in Michigan and Nevada are still seeing traditional "#independent #expenditures"
from the committee, and these, too, will soon come to an end.

Hybrid commercials, allow outside spenders to split the cost of advertising with the campaign they're boosting
-- and take advantage of federal rules requiring stations to charge lower rates to candidates rather than the higher rates third-party groups face.

Party committees and super PACs can therefore get more bang for their buck,
especially in media markets where an influx of political ads has caused the cost of ad time to skyrocket.

Unnamed Republicans tell Mutnick that one such market is #Missoula, Montana, where 🔸outside groups now need to pay an astonishing 25 times as much as a candidate would.

Those same sources also relay that,
had the NRSC continued to air ads against Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in Nevada,
it would need to pay a rate 10 times greater than the one its nominee, Sam Brown, is getting.

👉 There's a drawback, though. Hybrid ads are subject to more stringent content requirements than other commercials.

Most notably, such ads are required to reference a political party writ large,
as opposed to just a single candidate.

These requirements, Mutnick notes, can make these spots "clunky and difficult to design."

That may not be much of a concern in ♦️red states like Montana or Ohio where a message broadly attacking Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party will likely be popular.

However, it can be more of an impediment in ♦️swing seats where the GOP candidates need to win over at least some voters open to backing Harris.

It's an especially serious obstacle in ♦️dark blue Maryland where Republican Larry Hogan is doing whatever he can to distance himself from Donald Trump and his allies.

⚠️However, the NRSC may not feel a need to invest in Maryland because a super PAC funded in part by
🆘 conservative #megadonor #Ken #Griffin is spending huge amounts on independent expenditures, and those ads are under no obligation to mention the rest of the GOP

the-downballot.com/p/morning-d

The Downballot · Morning Digest: A 'cash crunch' forces Senate Republicans to abandon traditional adsBy David Nir
Continued thread

Independent journalist #Ken #Klippenstein was suspended from X after he 🔸published the hacked dossier compiled by the Trump campaign during its #vetting of JD #Vance.

Back in February, the Trump campaign compiled a research dossier on Vance in order to vet the Ohio senator as a potential running mate for Donald Trump.

The 271-page document included a section about “potential vulnerabilities,” which included his past criticism of the former president.

Soon after Trump picked Vance as his vice presidential nominee, an individual known as “#Robert” sent the document to a reporter from Politico.

In August, The Trump campaign revealed it had been ⚠️ hacked by Iranian intelligence.

Several other outlets were sent the vetting documents, but all refused to print its contents
— on the grounds of both the unclear provenance of the information as well as its apparent lack of newsworthiness.

Some criticized those outlets for their refusal to make the documents public.

Klippenstein on Thursday published the dossier via his website.

“The dossier has been offered to me and I’ve decided to publish it because it’s of keen public interest in an election season,” Klippenstein wrote.

“It’s a 271-page research paper the Trump campaign prepared to vet now vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.

As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been altered, but even if it was, its contents are publicly verifiable. I’ll let it speak for itself.”

His account was suspended hours after publishing the dossier.

mediaite.com/election-2024/jus

Mediaite · Journalist Ken Klippenstein Suspended By X After Publishing Hacked JD Vance DossierIndependent journalist Ken Klippenstein was suspended from X after published the hacked dossier compiled by the Trump campaign on JD Vance.