The Democratic National Committee’s period of rebranding is plagued by intra-party conflicts brought to the public, though members argue it’s nothing more than “HR matters” and the result of “bruised egos.”

Democrats are being hit with blow after blow in the wake of the 2024 election as they try to rebuild their damaged image in the eyes of the voters. However, over the last several weeks, the DNC has seen its internal disputes brought to the forefront of the news, causing many to wonder if the Democrats will recover in time for 2026 and 2028 victories.

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First came the infighting over former DNC vice chair David Hogg, who walked away from the vice chairman position he held after the organization voted to hold new elections. In the aftermath, Malcolm Kenyatta retained his vice chair position, and a second vice chair will be selected on Tuesday. Then came a leaked audio recording in which DNC chair Ken Martin expressed he may not be up to the task of leading the organization.

On Monday, two prominent labor union leaders and longtime DNC members, Randi Weingarten and Lee Saunders, quit. Both leaders cited Martin’s leadership approach after he did not nominate them to serve on the Rules and Bylaws Committee, and they refused to continue as at-large DNC members. 

“These are new times. They demand new strategies, new thinking, and a renewed way of fighting for the values we hold dear. We must evolve to meet the urgency of this moment,” Saunders said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. 

This comes after he removed Iowa’s representation from the Rules and Bylaws Committee as well, another signal that the party is abandoning the Midwestern state in favor of newer, early primary states. 

“Is there more work to be done? Of course, like, we can always do better,” said Sunjay Muralitharan, president of the College Democrats of America and a DNC member. “And I think that it’s a valid concern to be like, ‘Hey, we should be moving faster.’ But I don’t think it’s fair to completely write off the work that has been done.”

Martin has traveled to 20 states and led the party to victory in flipping red seats during special elections in Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. Many Democrats are still throwing their support behind the chairman, despite his admission of self-doubt. 

But can the party get back up after being knocked down for several months? Many DNC members think that the organization is on the right track to do so. They say that in “real life,” businesses with new management will experience periods of unrest, “uncomfortableness,” and infighting over competing visions.

“It’s natural,” John Verdejo, North Carolina DNC member, said. “They want to shake things up as they see fit.”

Verdejo said he believes Martin wants to move the DNC in a “new direction,” and that could cause hackles to rise among the establishment, particularly those who have held longtime positions of power at the DNC.

“I think those are things that folks are getting, are going to get, have to get, used to, only because we’ve never experienced anything like that before,” Verdejo said. “Where you have folks who are DNC members who have been there for years, established, well-known that bring money resources into the DNC, now find themselves in the position of having to run, if they so choose to, for a position that they never had to before.”

In the case of Weingarten, leader of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, several DNC members say they will be sorry to see them go, but understand Martin is doing what he sees as best for Democrats.

“I think Ken needs to stay on path, stay focused and weather a lot of this, and if folks want to resign and step away from their positions because they disagree, well, then similar to David Hogg, Ken has made decisions and not everybody’s going to agree with him and I think he can, through leadership, show how to bring folks together,” Michael Ceraso, a Democratic communications strategist, who has worked closely with the DNC, told the Washington Examiner. 

“He’s going to lose some folks on the way. It’s inevitable,” the strategist said.

Ron Harris, a Minnesota DNC member and chair of the DNC midwestern caucus, urged party members to remain focused on helping win back voters and speaking to the issues that most affect them. 

“Most, if not all of us at the DNC, are also itching to get back to doing the good work of electing good Democrats, passing good policy, getting in the way of the terrible, terrible things that the Trump administration is doing,” Harris said. “I think it’s actually crazy, if I’m being honest with you, that people are focused on internal party dynamics.” 

Harris claimed that the internal drama was distracting from the horrific murders of Minnesota state lawmaker Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota Democrat, and her husband, Mark, whom he knew on a personal note, as did Martin. 

“We’re grieving in Minnesota. I lost a good friend. Ken lost a very, very close friend. Minnesota, politics will never be the same. I would argue that people around the country are feeling this,” he said.

“Why aren’t we talking about — how do we make sure that our public servants who dedicate their lives to making this world a better place? Why aren’t we talking about how we keep them safe? Why aren’t we talking about how we bring down the rhetoric so that people like myself, people like my friends, aren’t put on lists and targeted for their beliefs, because they’ve been denigrated from the very top of the government,” he added. “If there’s any crisis, it’s a crisis of focus, and that’s what I’m worried about.”

Simultaneously, Democrats are struggling with how to handle significant differences in opinions about how the party moves forward. 

Hogg’s departure is different from Weingarten’s and Saunders’s, several Democrats and DNC members say, as the young former vice chair hit several nerves when he unveiled a plan to back primary challenges on longtime incumbents in an effort to get younger people in office. Martin quickly denounced the plan, claiming it would hurt the party’s ability to oppose President Donald Trump, and much of the Democratic Party agreed with him.

With the recent resignations of top leaders like Weingarten and influential young voices like Hogg, the issue that Democrats faced in November remains: Are they strong enough to build a coalition, bring back lost voting blocs, and defeat Republicans in the midterms and next presidential election?

Muralitharan said he thinks one has nothing to do with the other. He acknowledged the DNC’s loss of people like Weingarten and Hogg, who are important voices. 

“I think that I would have wanted a better case scenario,” Muralitharan said. “But I think to conflate the two of them, like, because of these resignations or these decisions that we’re unable to fight Trump, I wouldn’t say that’s the case.”

Part of the problem, some argue, is inflating the importance of the infighting to the media. Verdejo said it makes him “uneasy” that so much of the inner workings of the DNC are constantly being leaked out instead of being kept “in house,” such as the Martin audio or the resignation announcements of the labor leaders.

What does the DNC need to do to fix it? Verdejo said more “aggression” and intentionality when it comes to responding to Trump and the GOP agenda through town halls, op-eds, and people on the ground.

But, Verdejo said, he expects within a few months that all of the inter-party fighting will go “by the wayside.”

“What we’re talking about is minuscule. It’s peanuts, in comparison to everything we have going on in this country,” Verdejo said, referring to the fighting as “HR” matters. “The way I look at it, to be fair, we talk about new administration, and we have a whole bunch of, dare I say, maybe bruised egos.”

“But my hope and my expectation that a year from now, all this will be a foregone conclusion, and we will be all united to go and fight against those things that really matter to us, and as a nation,” Verdejo added.

Harris agreed, saying he is ready to look ahead and reminded that Martin has only been in charge for five months. 

KEN MARTIN HAS DOUBTS HE CAN LEAD THE DNC, BUT DEMOCRATS WANT TO GIVE HIM A CHANCE

“I’m looking at the grassroots fundraising records being broken,” Harris said. “I’m looking at a lot of the new voices that are emerging. I’m looking at the ways that the DNC has democratized itself a bit more in the way that Ken has tried to share power, like let’s talk about that stuff.”

“Because the rest of this, if I’m being honest, are distractions,” he added. “And that’s no disrespect to David, Lee, or Randi, who I know are going to continue to do the work with or without the DNC. But we’re ready to move forward.”