A deeply unpopular Republican president, high gas prices, a seemingly endless war against Iran that has little popular support. Many factors in the current U.S. political climate should be favorable to Democrats. Instead, the Democratic Party is left with much hand-wringing ahead of November's midterm elections and growing calls for the party's executive leader to step down.
One of the people voicing those calls is David Hogg, a gun violence prevention advocate who previously served as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. He now runs Leaders We Deserve, a group to elect young progressive leaders to Congress and state legislatures.
"When you tell people not to believe what they're seeing or what they're feeling with the economy or the president or something like what is happening in Gaza, you're going to lose them," Hogg said.
"And I think that the establishment of the Democratic Party is going out there trying to offer voters basically a different shade of lipstick that they're putting on the pig and expecting voters to somehow buy that when the reality is they're sick and tired of that. They want fighters."
Speaking with Morning Edition host Michel Martin in a televised interview at NPR's headquarters, Hogg called for the ouster of DNC Chairman Ken Martin, who has not granted any major media appearances for months.
"We should hold our share of the lead opposition party to Donald Trump to a standard at least as high as we would hold a middle schooler," he said. "People want new leadership and they feel like they're not being properly represented."
The DNC did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment. In a Substack post last month, Martin said he gave a "resounding yes" to the Democrats' readiness to win this fall. He also claimed to be leading the "strongest out-of-power fundraising performance in DNC history."
But the DNC reported some $16.4 million in cash and more than $18 million in debt – meaning it has a $2 million deficit, according to federal filings in late June, compared to the Republican National Committee's more than $128 million in cash without any debt.
Other Democratic operatives have also urged Martin to resign over complaints about his decision-making – including withholding and then releasing an incomplete "autopsy report" of the 2024 election – leadership style and poor fundraising. The party has given no indication it intends to replace Martin ahead of November's mid-term elections.
Hogg said he wasn't interested in leading the party himself, despite a recent call from him to do so by prominent political consultant James Carville.
"I think what I'm doing is far more impactful outside of the DNC right now than I could be inside," said Hogg, who served as DNC co-vice chair for several months last year.
In order for the Democrats to secure major wins in a divided political landscape, he added, "it's going to come from embracing new ideas, bringing in new people and not just offering people the same messengers with the same milquetoast message."
At the same time, party leaders have blamed progressives, including Democratic Socialists, for dividing the party and creating fundraising challenges. But Hogg pointed instead to special interests and corporations that have long held sway over both dominant American political parties.
"I find it quite rich for the establishment of the party to be blaming progressives after they lost for a second time to Donald Trump," he said.
"Part of the reason why we are in this position is because there are hundreds of millions, frankly, billions of dollars in incentives to keep everything as similar as possible within the Democratic Party infrastructure right now, even if it means that we continue to lose and we continue to not be in a fighting position as an opposition party."
Hogg called for a "more representative" party, one that includes a cross-section of age groups from the left's political spectrum. "My vision for the party is one where we stop being a geriatric party," he said. "I don't think that we should have people that are constantly voting for Democrats because they're just like, God, at least they're not Republicans.'"
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