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House Democrats voted this week to keep their top leaders in place for the next Congress, as the race to lead the national party kicked off with former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Ken Martin, the head of the Minnesota state party, launching bids for Democratic National Committee chair.
As Democrats look to move forward from losing the White House and Senate in this month’s elections, DNC members are set to pick a successor to Jaime Harrison early next year. But Democrats on Capitol Hill will be on the front lines responding to the incoming Trump administration, especially in the narrowly divided House, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and company poised to help chart the party’s next steps.
California Rep. Ro Khanna said he expected much of the party’s messaging ahead of the 2026 midterms to come from Capitol Hill, rather than the DNC.
The field for DNC chair is likely to grow: Strategist Chuck Rocha is weighing a run, and other names floated include Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler and former Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the current U.S. ambassador to Japan.
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, who served as DNC chair during President Barack Obama’s first term, left the door open to weighing in on who should lead the committee as the field becomes clearer. The DNC will need to pivot by nature of not having control of the White House, he said.
“They are going to have to, I think, fundamentally change people, structure, agenda, relationships with state parties, because the goal is quite different,” Kaine told At the Races this week.
Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, another former DNC chair, said the next leader should have “significant reach across the breadth of the party, a deep understanding of the communication and messaging and substantive issues that are essential.”
“We have to have someone who is able to bring together the coalition, the philosophical coalitions of our party,” the longtime congresswoman said.
Starting gate
Closing the Gaetz: Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz on Thursday abruptly dropped his bid to become President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general. The decision by Gaetz, who had been facing sexual misconduct allegations and the looming specter of an unreleased ethics report, spares the Senate from what was likely to be a contentious confirmation process, our colleague Ryan Tarinelli reports.
#NJGOV: Democratic Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill both launched campaigns for New Jersey governor over the past week, joining a crowded field that now totals six Democrats and four Republicans. It’s the most open race for chief executive the state has seen in years and the first gubernatorial race without the influence of the so-called party line, which gave preferential ballot placement to candidates backed by county organizations.
Filling the Cabinet: Trump has continued to announce nominees and appointees for key roles in his next administration, and there’s no shortage of familiar faces from the campaign trail. Linda McMahon, his nominee for Education secretary, twice ran for Senate in Connecticut. Mehmet Oz, who CQ Roll Call’s Jessie Hellmann and Ariel Cohen report is Trump’s choice to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, ran for Senate in Pennsylvania last cycle.
New New Dems: The New Democrat Coalition, a group of center-left House Democrats, picked Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider as its chair for the next Congress, CQ Roll Call’s Caitlin Reilly reports. The group added at least 23 new members in the election.
They know their way around: CQ Roll Call’s Jackie Wang looks at the newly elected House members with previous experience as Hill staffers.
ICYMI
Alaska switch: The Associated Press called the race for Alaska’s at-large House district for Republican Nick Begich on Wednesday, with the challenger prevailing over Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola during the ranked-choice tabulations. Unofficial results also appear to show voters narrowly choosing to keep the state’s ranked-choice electoral system, Alaska Public Media reports, although the AP hasn’t yet made a call.
And then there were three: Three House races remain uncalled by the AP as of publication time. As vote counting continues in California, Republican Rep. John Duarte was ahead of Democratic challenger Adam Gray by just over 350 votes in the 13th District in the Central Valley, while GOP Rep. Michelle Steel trailed Democratic opponent Derek Tran by just under 400 votes in her 45th District seat anchored in Orange County. And in Iowa’s 1st District, Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is ahead of Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan by 801 votes, according to the AP. Bohannan has requested a recount, which is now underway.
#PASEN: Democratic Sen. Bob Casey conceded to Republican challenger Dave McCormick on Thursday in the marquee Senate election in Pennsylvania that is currently in a recount. “Pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted or the last,” the three-term senator said. The Associated Press had already called the election for McCormick.
#NYGOV: New York Rep. Ritchie Torres didn’t rule out a Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Kathy Hochul. He called the recent gains made by Trump in the blue-leaning state a “vote of no confidence in the leadership of New York State,” NY1 reports.
Florida special: Ernest Audino, a retired Army brigadier general who is Florida Rep. Michael Waltz’s district director, said he would run to succeed his boss, whom Trump tapped as his national security adviser. Waltz is expected to resign from his 6th District seat but has not said when he’ll do so.
All hands on deck: South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the incoming chair of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, announced that Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts and Indiana Sen.-elect Jim Banks will serve as NRSC vice chairs.
It could have been worse (House Democrats’ version): A review by House Democrats’ campaign arm yielded some unexpected bright spots for the party: The preliminary analysis of countywide data found that Democrats running in battleground districts outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris among Hispanic, Black and non-college-educated voters. “House Democrats held Republicans to a slim majority this election by overperforming with key demographics in virtually every corner of the country,” said Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene, the DCCC chair.
It could have been worse (Senate Democrats’ version): They were bracing for a tough election cycle and they got one. But at a news conference this week, Senate Democratic leaders chose to accentuate the positive. Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer highlighted wins by battleground Democrats such as Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan while acknowledging losses in three red states: Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. Slotkin urged Democrats to address kitchen table concerns “not from the faculty lounge, but from the assembly line” while also calling for “identity politics” to “go the way of the dodo.”
Here come the YIMBYs: A bipartisan group of House members concerned about the lack of affordable housing has formed a new caucus, Politico reports. The group, which is aligned with the Yes In My Backyard movement, will advocate measures to address the housing shortage, which emerged as a major issue in some races this year.
What we’re reading
Looking ahead: NOTUS looks at how North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who is up for reelection in 2026, faces an early test from conservatives and Democrats alike as he considers his votes on Trump’s Cabinet nominees.
Third-party Democrats? CQ Roll Call columnist David Winston writes that the exit poll data from Edison Research, while not yet final, appears to show independents surpassing Democrats in terms of party ID in the 2024 election. “Comparing the composition of the electorate in the 2024 presidential race with the one in 2020, Democrats dropped a significant 6 points in party ID, going from 37 percent to 31 percent and becoming, de facto, the country’s third party, behind both Republicans and independents,” Winston writes in his latest Roll Call column.
Nebraska: Dan Osborn, the Nebraska independent who gave Republican Sen. Deb Fischer an unexpectedly tough challenge this year, is not ruling out another Senate campaign, our former colleague Bridget Bowman reports for NBC News.
Democratic disaffection: Capital B interviewed Black Democrats in rural areas and found widespread discontent with the party. “The Democratic Party has lost its way,” a party official from south Georgia told the outlet.
Coiffure for a comeback? Former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner pondered a potential political comeback as he got his hair styled at a Manhattan barbershop this week, The New York Times reports. The Democrat, who served a year and a half in prison for sending sexually explicit texts to a teenage girl, said he might run for a seat on the New York City Council.
Diminished clout: The Texas Tribune analyzed Trump’s Cabinet and staff picks and found representation from the Lone Star State lacking. Just one major nominee — former Rep. John Ratcliffe, Trump’s pick for CIA director — hails from Texas. Meanwhile, Florida, Trump’s adoptive home state, is home to an outsize percentage of his nominees.
The count: 4 (5?)
Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal of consideration to be Trump’s attorney general left the former president tied with John Tyler with a record four failed Cabinet picks, according to Senate records.
Through his first term as president, Trump was tied with Presidents Bill Clinton and Obama with three Cabinet nominees withdrawing from Senate consideration. Gaetz becomes the 28th such pick to be either rejected or withdrawn, or otherwise fail to be confirmed.
Tyler, who served almost a full term, still retains a technical lead over Trump on the dubious leaderboard: His four nominees were rejected by the Senate a total of five times. After Caleb Cushing, his first of two failed nominees for Treasury secretary, was rejected in March 1843 on a 10-27 vote, Tyler doubled down and renominated him the same day. The Senate vote on Cushing’s second nomination was an even more overwhelming rejection, with only two senators voting in support.
Nathan’s notes
CQ Roll Call political analyst Nathan L. Gonzales looks at how the partisan landscape has changed after the 2024 elections, according to Inside Elections’ Baseline metric. The latest shifts in partisanship have largely benefited Republicans, Nathan writes, but Democrats have made longer-term gains in states such as Arizona and Georgia over the past decade.
Coming up
At The Races will be on hiatus next week for Thanksgiving, but the political news will keep coming. Pennsylvania is expected to publish the results of the recount in the Senate race on Wednesday. Casey, the Democratic incumbent, has already conceded to Republican challenger McCormick.
Photo finish
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The post At the Races: DNC, or the Democrats’ Next Campaign appeared first on Roll Call.
