As the Democratic Party reels from devastating losses — in the presidential contest, the race to control the Senate and its bid to regain control of the House — its national committee is searching for a new chair. Whoever lands that critical role will be charged with shepherding the party out of the woods and into a new era.
Jaime Harrison, the current chair of the Democratic National Committee, has decided not to seek re-election. The party’s 448 committee members, who include party officials and politicians from across the country, are expected to vote on his replacement on Feb. 1.
Two contenders have already entered the race. Several others have either suggested publicly that they are considering a run, or are quietly holding conversations with party members to gauge potential support. The private deliberations were described by several people who have participated in them and insisted on anonymity.
Here’s a look at the Democrats in the mix.
Who’s already joined the race?
Martin O’Malley
Mr. O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland and a Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, was the race’s first entrant.
He has a long record of public service, getting his start on the Baltimore City Council before becoming the city’s mayor in 1999. During his tenure as governor, an office he held from 2007 to 2015, he led the Democratic Governors Association.
In 2023, President Biden tapped him to lead the Social Security Administration. Mr. O’Malley has said he will resign from the post on Friday.
When he kicked off his candidacy for the party’s chair, Mr. O’Malley announced that he had won endorsements from several D.N.C. members. In an interview with The New York Times, he said that he was a “turnaround manager,” and that the party should advance “economic arguments” to court voters.
“We face enormous challenges and a lot of soul-searching,” he said. “We need to focus on fixing the problem, and not the blame.”
Ken Martin
Mr. Martin, one of several vice chairs of the D.N.C., is also the longtime leader of Minnesota’s Democratic Party.
Mr. Martin has an extensive track record in behind-the-scenes party leadership. He has led the state party in Minnesota since 2011 and became a national vice chair in 2017. He is also president of the Association of State Democratic Committees, which lobbies the national committee on behalf of the state parties.
Mr. Martin entered the race for party chair, his campaign said, with endorsements from 83 D.N.C. members, including James Zogby, a longtime committee member who is running to be a vice chair.
Mr. Martin has expressed interest in having Democrats contest every race on every ballot across the country, something no party currently does. He recently told The Times that the party’s next leader would have an opportunity to “reimagine the D.N.C.” while “trying to get at what happened in this last election.”
Who might join the race soon?
Chuck Rocha
Mr. Rocha, a cowboy-hat-wearing Democratic strategist from Texas, has been teasing a run for D.N.C. chair on social media.
In 2020, Mr. Rocha advised the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, and he founded a political action committee to turn out Latino voters.
In an appearance on CNN on Nov. 20, Mr. Rocha called himself “the only senior national Democratic operative without a college degree” and said he wanted the party to return to representing “the common man.” His goal, he added, was to make Democrats “fun again.”
Ben Wikler
Mr. Wikler, the chair of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party, has had private conversations about joining the race.
He has led the state party since 2019 and is a popular figure among Democrats in Wisconsin, a political battleground. Some Democrats credit him for helping Joseph R. Biden Jr. win the state in 2020, and for helping Gov. Tony Evers secure re-election in 2022.
Michael Blake
Mr. Blake, a former vice chair of the Democratic Party, told The Times recently that he was considering jumping into the race, though he has also entered the crowded race for mayor of New York.
“NYC. DNC. A New Day is coming,” Mr. Blake posted on X in late November, hinting at his interest in both posts.
A former New York State assemblyman, Mr. Blake lost a U.S. congressional race, in a district that included a part of the Bronx, in 2020. He served as a party vice chair from 2017 to 2021.
Max Rose
A former U.S. representative from New York and a moderate Democrat from Staten Island, Mr. Rose has come up as a potential contender.
Mr. Rose is a former army officer who earned a Purple Heart for his service in Afghanistan. During his term in Congress, from 2019 to 2021, he joined committees on homeland security and veterans’ affairs, and he helped secure the passage of a bill for a fund for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Mallory McMorrow
Ms. McMorrow, a Michigan state senator, is also considering a run.
“I am taking a serious look at it and continuing to talk to as many people as possible,” she said in an interview with The Times. “I really want to hear from the members what they’re looking for and what their concerns are as we move forward.”
Politico reported earlier on Ms. McMorrow’s potential interest.
Ms. McMorrow earned viral fame in 2022 when she gave a fiery floor speech denouncing Republicans’ treatment of the L.G.B.T.Q. community as a “hollow, hateful scheme” after a colleague accused her in a fund-raising email of wanting to “groom and sexualize” children.
That earned her a speaking slot at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where she was one of a number of officials to brandish an oversized prop book of Project 2025, the conservative policy playbook developed by Trump allies that became a key line of attack for Democrats.
Who could be the wild cards?
Additional candidates might enter the race less with an expectation of winning it than with hopes of gaining a national profile.
Eight years ago, a small-town mayor from South Bend, Ind., jumped into the race for chairman of the Democratic National Committee with little but a strong public relations campaign. That mayor — Pete Buttigieg — earned just three votes before delivering a stirring concession speech to party delegates in Atlanta.
Not long after, Mr. Buttigieg began a presidential campaign that largely repeated the themes from his campaign for party chair, and he transformed himself into a national figure now seen as among Democrats’ best communicators in the second Trump era.
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