The Scoop
A candidate who failed to win a Democratic National Committee leadership role is challenging her defeat — the first threat to DNC Vice Chair David Hogg since he vowed to keep backing some primary challenges to incumbents.
The DNC’s credentials committee will meet virtually on May 12 to consider the challenge from Kalyn Free, a Native American attorney and party activist who lost a vice chair spot to Hogg at the party’s Feb. 1 meeting.
In her complaint, shared with Semafor by a Democratic source, Free argued that she lost a “fatally flawed election that violated the DNC Charter and discriminated against three women of color candidates,” and asks for “two new vice chair elections.” In February, after several rounds of voting, the race came down to five candidates – Kenyatta, Hogg, Free, and two other women. Kenyatta and Hogg claimed the open spots.
“By aggregating votes across ballots and failing to distinguish between gender categories in a meaningful way, the DNC’s process violated its own Charter and Bylaws, undermining both fairness and gender diversity,” argued Free, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation.
Free filed her challenge on Feb. 28, and committee members were informed yesterday that it would be taken up on May 12. Attorneys for Hogg argued in a response to the committee earlier this month that the election “was conducted in compliance with the rules in place at the time,” and that it is “inappropriate to try to revise those rules or decisions after the fact through a credentials challenge.”
In this article:
David’s view
Hogg’s work with his Leaders We Deserve PAC, which funds young Democratic candidates and may support some primary challengers, has fueled a complicated intra-party fight.
An upcoming vote to require neutrality from DNC members wasn’t actually about Hogg. According to DNC chair Ken Martin, the purpose was restoring the “trust” of Democratic voters, after anger at the superdelegate system that helped nominate Hillary Clinton in 2016 and facilitate the party’s early endorsement of Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 primary.
But some DNC members have spoken out against Hogg’s PAC, and he leaned into the media coverage — conflict equals news — to do hours of interviews about the need to change the party. He told me last week that he would not quit the DNC if asked to, and that the party would have to force him out.
Changing the endorsement rule at an August meeting wouldn’t have automatically done that. But if the party agrees with Free and grants the relief she wants, it would hold new elections for vice chair, giving anti-Hogg members a chance to get rid of him.
Hogg has embraced his role as an inside-outside organizer, fighting back against critics who think unity is more important than overhauling how the party operates. Free is asking the party to vacate the elections of a gay black man (Kenyatta) and a straight white man (Hogg) so that a woman has a chance to win one of their jobs.
At issue, according to her challenge, is whether Democrats will fight for “free and fair elections” and fight against “discrimination of women and people of color.”
Is this a politically opportune fight for Democrats to have next month? It doesn’t matter. They’re going to clash anyway.
Notable
- The Chicago Tribune’s editorial board endorsed the spirit of Hogg’s inside-the-tent challenges yesterday, after his media blitz: “We’re not here to defend Hogg. But we do support challenging the status quo that has left many Americans disenchanted and politically homeless.”
- Politico’s Holly Otterbein saw the DNC race as a showcase of what went wrong for them in 2024. “The aspiring DNC leaders inadvertently showcased the party’s self-absorbed tendencies that strategists argue have driven away swing voters, by turns fixating on identity politics, displaying scorn for large swaths of the electorate and failing to focus on the pocketbook concerns of ordinary Americans.”