Is This Guy the Worst Party Chair in the History of the United States?

Ken Martin once seemed like a promising leader of the DNC. But his reign has been disastrous—and the time has come to turn to the man he defeated.

Self-help author Marianne Williamson didn’t exactly impress a lot of people as having the sharpest political mind during her brief foray into electoral politics. But here’s one thing she got a thousand percent right—though maybe not the way she intended.

In early 2025—and yes, you may be forgiven for having forgotten this—she ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee. Her candidacy went nowhere, and when she dropped out, she threw whatever weight she’d amassed behind Ken Martin over his chief rival, Ben Wikler. She told Politico at the time that Wikler’s establishment backing—he was endorsed for the job by Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Nancy Pelosi—was what made her turn to Martin. “This had come down to a race between two people,” she said, “and Ken to me is the one who does not represent billionaire funding that has become inherent to the functioning of the DNC.”

You can say that again, Marianne. Not only does Martin not represent billionaire funding; he represents no funding. As has been much reported lately, most dramatically in a brutal New York Times story that ran Sunday, the Democratic Party is broke. Not just broke. In debt. To the tune of $2 million. The Republican National Committee, by contrast, has $128.5 million cash on hand.

This should be a banner year for the Democrats, and the odds are still good that it will be. Donald Trump’s approval numbers are starting to compete with Kanye West’s and Meghan Markle’s, and it seems daily as if he’s doing his best to catch them. He says he doesn’t care about people’s financial struggles, he keeps fighting this ridiculous war whose........

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