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MINNEAPOLIS, MN. – As the Democratic National Committee (DNC) holds its annual summer meeting, party leaders and officials face a multitude of problems as they try to escape the political wilderness.
“There’s no doubt that … we have work to do,” DNC chair Ken Martin acknowledged in a sit-down interview this summer with Fox News Digital.
Martin, who was elected DNC chair in February, noted that the party has continued to “lose ground with many parts of our coalition.”
Martin will address the more than 400 elected party officials from all 50 states and several territories, as the summer meeting kicks off at a downtown hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Monday morning.
The party is trying to escape the political wilderness after last year’s elections, when Democrats lost control of the White House and the Senate and fell short in their bid to win back the House majority. And Republicans made gains with voters who make up key parts of the Democratic Party’s base.
But the situation has only worsened for the Democrats in the 10 months since last year’s election setbacks.
The Democrats’ brand is deeply unpopular, especially with younger voters, as the party’s poll numbers continue to drop to all-time lows in national surveys.
The DNC faces a massive fundraising deficit at the hands of the rival Republican National Committee (RNC), fueled in part by major party donors cutting back their contributions as they express their frustrations with the national party committee.
New voter data first reported last week by the New York Times showed Democratic Party registration plunging while GOP sign-ups were on the rise in the 30 states that register voters by party.
And while Democrats appear energized to fight the sweeping and controversial moves by President Donald Trump during his first seven months in office, they seem to be divided on how hard to push back against the new administration.
There’s also a party divide over Israel’s nearly two-year-old war with Hamas in Gaza, with dueling resolutions being the latest sign of the Democrats’ once unshakeable support for the Jewish State fracturing.
Despite the DNC chair admitting they have issues, he saw a silver lining.
“When you hit rock bottom, there’s only one direction to go, and that’s up, and that’s what we’re doing,” Martin said.
Former RNC chair Michael Whatley, who formally stepped down last week as he runs for the Senate, argued in a Fox News Digital interview that the Democrats “are moving further and further and farther to the left. They are walking away from Main Street right now. They are beholden to left-wing radical woke policies.”
“They haven’t learned a single thing from their election losses in 2024,” Whatley claimed.
But despite all the problems and setbacks facing the Democrats, they have enjoyed some victories of late.
Democrats have scored a slew of off-year and special election wins, ahead of next year’s midterm elections, when the GOP will be defending its majorities in the House and Senate as the party in power will likely face historical political headwinds.
Democrats have also landed some top recruits – former Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina and former Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, in two of the most crucial 2026 Senate races.
And while the Democratic Party’s poll numbers are in the gutter, the approval and favorable ratings for Trump and the GOP are nothing to brag about. Plus, polls indicate that the so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ which is the Trump-inspired massive Republican domestic policy, tax cuts and spending law, remains unpopular with Americans.
Despite the poll numbers, new RNC chair Joe Gruters told Fox News Digital last week that “we have the momentum on our side, we have the issues on our side, and we have a president who cares about every single American. And we’re gonna take that vision and push it all the way through the midterms.”
But as he looks ahead to next year’s midterm elections, Martin sees the GOP agenda as ammunition.
“We welcome the debate because this is the debate that’s going to actually help us, as a Democratic Party, build our coalition again and win elections,” the DNC chair insisted.
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