The DNC chair candidates discuss Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and winning Latino voters (including Ben Wikler)

By JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated Press

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Four people are running to be the next Democratic National Committee chair, looking to take on the task of reinvigorating a party demoralized by a second loss to President-elect Donald Trump.

Others may still get into the race as the party reckons with the 2024 election, which saw Trump gain with nearly every demographic group in a decisive repudiation of the incumbent party. The committee's roughly 450 members will elect a successor for outgoing chairperson Jaime Harrison on Feb. 1.

The four declared candidates spoke to The Associated Press this week in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they were making their pitch in public and private at a meeting of state Democratic chairs. Here is a sampling of their responses.

Should Joe Biden have dropped out sooner?

The 82-year-old incumbent has been criticized for seeking reelection when many Americans were concerned about his age, and he has been accused of not giving Vice President Kamala Harris enough time to distinguish herself against Trump.

KEN MARTIN, Democratic chairman in Minnesota and DNC vice chair: “To me it’s an academic exercise. You can’t change the past. So for us, it’s really about what lessons can we draw right now that can inform the future.”

MARTIN O'MALLEY, former Maryland governor and Social Security administrator: “I don’t know. You guys playing this D.C. parlor game on me, I’m not going to engage in that. Sorry.”

JAMES SKOUFIS, New York state senator: "Yes. A 107-day runway made for an exceptionally difficult set of circumstances. And it was clear to most Democrats at the time that President Biden was not well-situated to run for reelection. And if dropping out sooner would have meant a primary, so be it. Vice President Harris, I’m very confident, still would have likely been the nominee if there was a primary. She would have been a stronger nominee with that longer runway."

BEN WIKLER, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party: "My campaign slogan is ‘unite, fight, win.’ And to me, uniting means a reckoning with how we can adapt to do better, but not recriminations about different things in the past. So my focus is on learning every lesson that we can apply in these next four years and beyond to build the new capacities that are going to allow us to win the lessons that were out of reach in 2024 and the last few years."

Did Kamala Harris spend too much time with Liz Cheney and courting Republican votes?

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other progressives argued before and after Election Day that Harris should have focused more on working-class voters and less on Republicans and right-leaning voters disaffected with Trump.

MARTIN: “Were there things we can learn from the election? Sure. We’re going to have to dig into all that. One thing I would say that’s important is that we have to make sure that we are competing in all spaces and we’re talking to all voters. And I’m not suggesting we spend a lot of time talking to Republican voters, don’t get me wrong. But we need to make sure that we are reaching outside of just our comfort zone and our base and trying to really make a significant play for independent voters.”

O'MALLEY: “I don’t know. That’s another parlor game thing and I’m not going to second-guess that. The only thing I know for sure, from all the people I’ve talked to now across the country, is that there’s pretty widespread belief that Americans’ primary concern in this election was economic anxieties about the future. Fear of the future. Fear that their own work wasn’t sufficient to keep their head above water. And we failed to speak to their economic concerns.”

SKOUFIS: “I believe it was absolutely the right thing to be spending time and hitting the stump with Liz Cheney and other Republicans, disaffected former Trump administration officials. That was absolutely the right thing to do. And similarly, we absolutely need to be doing more of rebuilding the fraying edges of our tent on the left. They’re not mutually exclusive.”

WIKLER: “I live in a state where the suburban counties that Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris visited actually grew vote share for Democrats relative to 2020. Harris did better in the (suburban Milwaukee) counties than Biden had in the 2020 election. And I think there were some voters who are traditionally Republican who are making up their mind in the last second who saw that Republicans like them could vote for a Democrat this year. At the same time, there’s a ton of working-class folks who didn’t hear our message and who we need to find more ways to reach, that often won’t rely on being familiar with political figures that play a big role in cable news but aren’t present in people’s lives. And figuring out how to how to reach those folks, I think, is the next big challenge that we need to build on.”

How do Democrats do better with Latino voters, particularly Latino men?

While Harris won Latino voters overall, Trump made major inroads with Hispanic voters, especially men, according to AP VoteCast data.

MARTIN: “Every hot take right now that we see is completely garbage. It’s just hogwash because it’s not based in any research. We don’t know how much ad spend was spent targeting the Latino man. We don’t know what the outreach and field programs were. We don’t know what universes we targeted and how we were talking to the Latino community. What were the treatments to those universes? All of those pieces, right? Which organizations were tasked with mobilizing and turning out the Latino community, particularly Latino men? All of that has to be on the table to really figure out, what did we do, where were the gaps, how did we fall down? And then you can apply the prescription.”

O’MALLEY: “I may sound like a broken record, but I really do believe it is the economic issues. It is the union jobs, living wages, opportunity for all ... . Too many people heard ‘defending America, defending democracy,’ and they thought this meant defending the status quo.”

SKOUFIS: “I think it’s showing up. We have to stop speaking in overly academic terms. Sometimes young voters in particular look at us and they think that we ought to be better running for chancellor of a small liberal arts college rather than public office.”

WIKLER: “Most Latino voters, most Black voters, most white voters are working-class folks who have many issues that they care about. But all those issues take a back seat to the core question of whether you can keep a roof over your head and food on your table and make sure your kids have clothes to wear to school. The thing that Democrats have the chance to do is ... to show that we’re on the side of those working folks.”

Would you support restoring Iowa and New Hampshire as the first states in 2028?

The DNC at Biden's behest made South Carolina the first primary state this year, angering New Hampshire Democrats who went ahead with their primary anyway.

MARTIN: “What I think is important is to make sure that that process is open and transparent, that all states who want to have an opportunity to be considered and that ultimately the end product, whatever calendar we come up with, not only reflects the great diversity of this country and honors some of the traditions of our Democratic Party, but is also, most importantly, putting us in a position to win by having a rigorous and efficient process that battle tests our nominee.”

O’MALLEY: “That will be a decision for the DNC to make in an open and transparent process. Period.”

SKOUFIS: “I’m willing to bet I’m the only DNC chair candidate that will give you a straightforward answer on this one. Whether people like the change or not, South Carolina was moved to pole position in the presidential nominating contests. I believe they deserve to have at least a first crack at a competitive primary. Dean Phillips versus Joe Biden was not a serious primary. And so I think they deserve to have a chance at a serious open primary, which will certainly happen in 2028. And then only after then we can evaluate how it went and whether we should reevaluate the order.”

WIKLER: “My view is that the nominating calendar should serve the goal of finding the nominee who’s going to win the general election. And we do that through a process that honors our coalition, that honors our traditions, and gives every candidate a fighting chance to be heard and make their case to become the next nominee.”