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As Democrats try to rebuild after the losses of 2024, there is lots of chatter about creating new organizations to work on communications or messaging or policy development. Democrats are effectively looking for workarounds to the DNC, which is no longer perceived as capable of meeting major challenges. Ask Democratic activists, donors and politicians about the DNC’s race for a new chairman for early next year, and you likely will get an eye roll or a comment about the DNC’s irrelevance.

Although the DNC hauls in massive donations, sets the presidential primary calendar and performs other functions, it was created in another era — before the internet, MAGA and the explosion of dark money. The DNC doesn’t need to be replaced, but it needs an overhaul.

The DNC contest is about more than one party. In an era in which there is only one small-d democratic party, fashioning it into an instrument to effectively organize, message and combat disinformation is critical.

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who announced his run, last won elective office in 2010; another potential choice, Rahm Emanuel, served in the first Obama term. If the DNC wants business as usual, any of these (or the stolid Minnesota chair Ken Martin, who also announced) would do. But none seems up to reinvigorating the DNC to make it central to the party’s — and democracy’s — revival.

If the DNC wants someone of a different generation who possesses the energy to shake up the party — and to improve the party’s standing in the critical Midwest — then Wisconsin chair Ben Wikler is the obvious choice.

Wikler has not announced (nor agreed to talk to me about it) but I know of no other contender who has mastered online communication and organizing, and who can enlist influencers to reach apolitical voters — all critical tasks among the many necessary to innovate a moribund party. An <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/08/ben-wikler-democrat-wisconsin-2024-election/674976/" target=_blank>Atlantic magazine</a> piece last year praised him (“Wikler’s talent is getting people to show up”) for dragging the state party back from “virtual irrelevance” and dubbed him “the man who has been hailed as ‘<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/03/wisconsin-democrats-ben-wikler-00022556" target=_blank>the best state chair in the country</a>.’” You would think the DNC would want to nationalize his organization, described as “a comprehensive digital operation, an in-house research group, and a full-time staff of youth organizers.”

Michael Podhorzer, former political director of the AFL-CIO, tells me, “Ben Wikler has been by far the most dynamic and effective state party chair over the last several cycles, revitalizing the Wisconsin Democratic Party by building the infrastructure to support a year-in, year-out ground game, meaning that the party is returning to its roots — person-to-person engagement.”

Expansive outreach almost certainly requires a new generation of leadership. “I’ve known him since I started Moms Demand Action,” the group’s founder Shannon Watts tells me. “He was an early podcast adopter and interviewed me back in 2014 or so. He’s always been a Moms Demand Action booster because he understands and appreciates the value of organizing on the ground all across the country.”

As a sunny Midwesterner from a “nail-biter” state — rather than a deep blue enclave — Wikler understands how reaching ticket-splitters and moderates would be a plus for a party perceived as heavy on coastal elites. One Democratic think tanker tells me, “Harris won 14 of 19 states that touched the Atlantic or Pacific. She won 5 of 31 states that did not. A DNC chair from the interior of the country — like Ben Wikler — is a must.”

In visits to Wisconsin and conversations with Wikler over years, I’ve been struck by his infectious enthusiasm. Wikler — sometimes accompanied by his massive Bernese Mountain dog, Pumpkin — is a frequent presence at field operations to cheer on his troops, and he gets a rock-star reception. He inspires capable people, then delegates authority. That formula forged an army of self-starting, year-round activists willing to door knock in freezing winters.

Wikler takes a long view in building on past successes. Last year, Wikler went all in to elect a progressive justice for a critical swing seat on the state Supreme Court. That allowed Democrats both to define themselves as indefatigable defenders of women’s rights and to successfully strike down absurdly gerrymandered districts. As a result, Wisconsin Dems this year marshaled 100,000 volunteers; <i>increased </i>turnout; gained four state Senate seats (ending the GOP supermajority) and won 10 Assembly seats previously held by Republicans; cleared a path to win majority control in both houses; reelected Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin); and brought the Harris-Walz ticket within less than a percentage point of victory, the narrowest margin of any of blue wall state. (Wikler’s candid, data-driven post-election analysis of the race is typically illuminating.) A Democrat activist focused on the swing states bluntly told me that Wikler’s “incredibly impressive ground game … helped minimize the bleed in Wisconsin.”

You can understand why Democrats joke about cloning him. One of multiple donors who agreed to speak only on background channeled the common sentiment that Wikler is the choice if “the Democratic Party is serious about being relevant, competent and effective.” A leader of a large grassroots group echoed the view that the chairmanship must be “an actual job instead of a patronage position. And if that’s the case, then the obvious best qualification for running the national party is having done a good job running a state party.”

Dems cannot expect to win <i>every</i> election. However, if the DNC wants a national party as effective as Wisconsin’s, it won’t find anyone as capable as Wikler. Then again, if Democrats prefer the status quo, there is no shortage of hacks.

University of California at Berkeley, BA in history

University of California at Berkeley, JD

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump” and is host of the podcast Jen Rubin's "Green Room."

Jennifer Rubin

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Ben Wikler should be the next chairman of the DNC

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