After a stinging election defeat, the Democrats’ next big race kicks off: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, senior national politics reporters Natasha Korecki and Alex Seitz-Wald break down the early state of the race to be the next Democratic National Committee chair. Plus, chief political analyst Chuck Todd explores how Donald Trump is quickly burning through his political capital.

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After a stinging election defeat, the race to lead the DNC kicks off

By Natasha Korecki and Alex Seitz-Wald 

Two weeks after suffering another stinging defeat to Donald Trump, Democrats are in the throes of dissecting what went wrong and figuring out their path forward. 

And the first concrete step in beginning their next chapter is already underway: selecting a new chair of the national party committee. 

The post will take on outsize importance for a defeated party lacking a clear leader, especially in the run-up to the 2028 presidential election, when the new chair will have to oversee the party’s primary and its controversial new calendar imposed by President Joe Biden.

Over the past 48 hours, a bevy of contenders interested in succeeding Jaime Harrison as the chair of the Democratic National Committee have either officially jumped into the race or seen their names floated as options.

It started Monday, when former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a onetime presidential candidate and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, kicked off the race by entering the fray. Minnesota Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin, a DNC vice chair and leader of the Association of State Democratic Committees, followed by formally announcing his candidacy Tuesday. 

Both Martin and O’Malley stressed ongoing investments in state parties as key to their vision for moving the DNC forward. 

Also on Tuesday, Latino Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha confirmed on X that he was in the running. So far, the only woman to emerge as a possible candidate, as Politico reported, is Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. She drew national acclaim on the left in 2022 after she delivered a speech in defiance of a Republican who cast her as a “groomer” in a fundraising appeal, which led to a speaking slot at this summer’s Democratic National Convention. 

Still looming out there: Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, who has developed a reputation as a prodigious fundraiser and field organizer. 

“Ben is seriously considering a run,” a person with knowledge of Wikler’s thinking told NBC News on Monday.  

That’s on top of chatter around Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, former Chicago mayor and chief of staff to then-President Barack Obama. Emanuel has reached out to other DNC members to test the waters, according to two people close to him.   

The DNC vice chair position is also drawing attention. Adam Parkhomenko, a Democratic operative who worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns, is considering a bid for the post, for which he unsuccessfully ran in 2017.

“I am seriously considering stepping back into the race, and I promise to take the time to weigh this decision carefully, with the same dedication to our party and values that I’ve always carried,” Parkhomenko said in a message to supporters obtained by NBC News. 

Also eyeing a run for the vice chair position is James Zogby, the founder of the Arab American Institute and longtime former DNC member who has criticized the party from the left.

While it’s still too early to get a clear sense of the fault lines that will define the DNC leadership races, the 50-state strategy could be one. This is a vision — investing in red, blue and swing states alike — that Martin in particular has fully embraced. If Emanuel does get into the race, it’s a strategy he famously opposed, even getting into a public feud with Howard Dean over it, arguing the party should train its focus on battleground states.  

The race could also expose divisions between an old era, one that embraced Obama — who had drastically diminished the role of the DNC and state parties by setting up a parallel entity in Organizing for America — and new faces who would bring fresh ideas to a party in search of a way forward.

Trump is burning his political capital quickly

By Chuck Todd

Here’s the political problem Donald Trump is creating for himself with his picks for the Cabinet and other positions: He’s taking full ownership of the entire bureaucracy now. There is no fantasy or mythical “deep state” to blame for not fulfilling his promises. He’s appointing folks he says share his vision — so no excuses of being jammed by the ol’ establishment wing of the GOP (like what happened in his first term).

This time, he has to deliver, and his ability to deliver depends on whether he can put together a stable set of political actors to not only do his bidding but also somehow deliver on his promises to a whole new group of voters who are “trying out” Trumpism for the very first time. 

 If the next six months at the Pentagon are more about which bathrooms folks can or can’t use and who can or can’t defend the country, Trump is going to find himself taking more of the heat for his controversial pick of defense chief than his actual pick for the post.

There are a lot of potential land mines that Trump and the newly empowered GOP need to avoid. One is misreading their mandate on the culture front. 

What many voters appeared to say with their votes, culturally, is that they don’t like to be told how they should behave. There’s a fierce libertarian streak in this country, and it can look “left” or “right” depending on which party is in power. If the Republicans go from preaching against “DEI” to essentially imposing their own culture, forcing Bible study in public schools (see Oklahoma) or using gender stereotypes rather than pure merit to decide whether someone belongs on the front lines of combat, then they will be committing the same sin they accused coastal elites of committing, of “imposing their own culture” on a public that doesn’t agree with their every belief. 

And this is the very risk Trump has already invited by deciding to pick the most controversial firebrand one could find in some of these key positions. If his picks cause instability, the public will reject this administration faster than he thinks.

 One thing Trump and the GOP are already misreading about his so-called mandate is that he was elected despite his personal unpopularity. That is, he wasn’t elected proactively by the voters who took him over the edge; he was elected because of who he was not.

This wasn’t a decision voters made because they like Trump. To the contrary, they made this decision because they didn’t think the Biden-Harris administration understood how they live their lives. Does Trump understand it? Perhaps he doesn’t, but he certainly knew how to channel their frustrations into a vote-getting message, and he certainly exposed the Democrats as not having any clue about how the working class was faring in this economy. 

But these moments of peak political capital are fleeting, and when they go, they go. Just ask Biden.

Read more from Chuck →

➡️ Trump transition watch

• Members of the House Ethics Committee met behind closed doors Wednesday but did not reach an agreement on whether to publicly release a report detailing their sweeping investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general.
• Outgoing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in an exclusive interview with NBC News that women were vital to the strength of the military. The comments come after Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, has cast doubt on placing women in combat roles. 
• The president-elect named Linda McMahon, a former World Wrestling Entertainment executive who served in the first Trump administration, as his pick to lead the Education Department.
• Former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker is Trump’s choice to be the next ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a key alliance that Trump derided for years.

That’s all from the Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com

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