By Arit John

(CNN) — Ken Martin, the head of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, was decisively elected chair of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, beating a crowded field in the first round of voting to become the new face of a party struggling to find its footing during the second Trump administration.

Martin, who has spent 14 years leading the Minnesota party and eight years as a DNC vice chair, emerged as an early front-runner in the race due to his long-standing ties to state party leaders, a key voting bloc. Throughout the campaign, he highlighted his track record: The Minnesota DFL hasn’t lost a single statewide race since he took over the party.

Now Martin is tasked with a new challenge: strengthening and transforming the national party to withstand the second Trump administration.

“We’re going to get to work,” Martin said Saturday in his acceptance speech. “We’re going to go out there and take this fight to Donald Trump.”

The election of new party leaders comes as Democrats have grappled with the most effective way to challenge the torrent of action spurred by the Trump White House, which just this week included the president blaming diversity initiatives for a deadly DC plane collision, a federal funding freeze that was rescinded in less than 48 hours amid widespread backlash, and confirmation hearings for three controversial Cabinet nominees.

Martin easily defeated two other leading contenders: Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

All three candidates claimed to have levels of support that, if combined, would have far exceeded 450 – the total number of voting DNC members. Heading into Saturday, Wikler claimed to have 183 endorsements and O’Malley claimed to have 137, though most of those names were private. Martin had released the names of 200 supporters.

The final vote showed that only one of the candidates was able to back their numbers up: Martin won with 246.5 votes out of 428 cast. Wikler received 134 votes and O’Malley received 44.

The results also showed the limited influence of high-profile endorsements. Wikler gained significant outside support in the final days of the campaign, thanks to endorsements from prominent governors, key labor leaders and top congressional leaders.

“This is not personal, we’re all on the same team. … I have long-standing relationships in the party, and at the end of the day, I’m really buoyed by that enthusiastic support,” Martin told reporters after the vote. “It was a one-ballot victory for a reason, right?”

In addition to choosing the next chair, DNC members will elect seven additional officers: a vice chair for civic engagement and voter participation; a treasurer; a secretary; a national finance chair; and three at-large vice chairs.

A new path forward

Without a Democratic president in the White House, leadership of the party will be fractured over the next four years. And with Democrats in the minority in both the House and Senate, much of the focus on Capitol Hill will be aimed at blocking Trump’s agenda rather than advancing the party’s policy priorities.

Martin will be tasked with helping guide the party forward as it looks to rebound from stinging losses last November. Asked what his message is to Trump, Martin said: The gloves are coming off.

“I’ve always viewed my roles as a chair of the Democratic Party to take the low road so my candidates and elected officials can take the high road,” Martin said. “So Donald Trump, Republican Party: This is a new DNC. We are not going to sit back and not take you on when you fail the American people.”

In addition to fundraising and messaging, Martin will also help steer the 2028 nominating process and create a campaign-in-waiting for the eventual Democratic nominee.

He will also need to unite the committee and address several internal issues, including anger over a wave of layoffs last year, demands for increased transparency around budgets and spending, and frustration with campaign consultants.

Outgoing chair Jaime Harrison touched on some of those tensions at the top of the elections, when he condemned reports that some DNC members had been intimidated, pressured or threatened by donors who said they would withhold funding over their votes.

“In this party, there will be no tolerance for that type of behavior,” Harrison said. “We must be united because too much is at stake right now in this country.”

State party leaders, particularly in non-battleground states, had pushed chair candidates to vow to invest more in their states, and rank-and-file members had called for a more democratized process to access exclusive committees made up of appointees.

“I have never attended a DNC meeting where I left and said, ‘Huh, I learned something,’” Stephanie Campanha Wheaton, one of the Young Democrats of America’s DNC members and a Martin supporter, told CNN. “You show up and you are a pawn, and you nod your head yes to everything that has already been decided upon in committees that you don’t know how people got on.”

At the heart of the leadership elections is a desire to make sense of the party’s 2024 losses and chart a path out of political obscurity. In more than a dozen forums, questions have focused on how to win back young men and working-class voters, how to fight disinformation, and how to make better use of the millions for dollars flowing into the party.

“It’s a sign of a healthy party to actually question each other, debate each other, think about the path forward,” said Tory Gavito, a Wikler backer and the president of Way to Win, a women-led donor coalition that co-hosted a DNC forum with the Texas Democratic Party. “And in this debating, the goal is to win.”

Martin entered the race first and was an early front-runner thanks to his yearslong relationships with the leaders of various state parties and other DNC members

Joe Salas, a California DNC member who backed Martin, said he believed the Minnesota chair understands the important role of local committees. On a personal level, he said Martin was the only high-ranking DNC leader to send him a congratulatory card welcoming him to the DNC when he was elected last year.

“It goes to his point about organizing year-round: You can’t come to somebody a couple of months before an election and ask them to do something,” Salas said. “You have to make deposits before you make withdrawals.”

Wikler experienced a late surge in support fueled by key endorsements from a group of Democratic governors – including DNC voting members Laura Kelly of Kansas, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico – and four large public-sector unions, which issued a joint statement.

Many of the DNC voters who endorsed Wikler pointed to his track record in Wisconsin since becoming chair in 2019, including winning a liberal majority on the state Supreme Court that paved the way for more competitive legislative maps.

In addition to AFT, Wikler was backed by the leaders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; National Education Association; and Service Employees International Union. Other unions split their support among the leading candidates.

“We felt like Ben Wikler was the one who could build worker power and expand the party’s base,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, of the joint union endorsement.

O’Malley, meanwhile, picked up public support from a handful of DNC members and high-profile Democrats such as Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine. His critiques of Martin and Wikler became more pointed in the final days of the race.

The former governor ribbed Wikler for declining to preemptively release a list of donors to his chair campaign ahead of a Friday night FEC deadline and suggested Martin’s support is not as strong as it seems during a gaggle with reporters after a candidate forum Thursday.

“When the totally inevitable front-runner, who’s been working at it for five years, shows himself not to be totally inevitable, I think it opens up for a larger debate,” O’Malley said.

In the days leading up to the election, the three front-runners released dozens of endorsements from key Democrats, only some of whom are able to vote in the election.

Soon after Martin announced he’d been backed by South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, whose endorsement helped former President Joe Biden win the 2020 Democratic primary, Wikler announced he had the support of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

One key Democrat did not weigh in on who should be chair: former Vice President Kamala Harris. Though the party has spent weeks debating what went wrong during her 2024 presidential campaign, Harris did not endorse a candidate in the race.

Harris spoke on the phone this week with the three leading candidates in the race, a person familiar with the discussions told CNN. In the calls, which each lasted about 15 to 20 minutes, the candidates discussed their visions for the party and expressed their gratitude to Harris for her candidacy and commitment to stay involved with the party’s efforts going forward. The former vice president pledged to work closely with the winning candidate as soon as they’re elected, the source said.

“In state after state, district after district, from house to house and door to door, you work to energize, organize and mobilize,” Harris said in a video address to the committee after the first round of votes. “And as we continue to fight for our ideals and to realize the promise of America, I will be with you every step of the way.”

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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