Democrats are openly turning on their own national party chairman as financial troubles, a workplace incident, and a flawed 2024 election review pile up heading into the midterms.
Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee chair who took the job promising to rebuild the party after its 2024 losses, now faces a growing chorus of fellow Democrats who say he is not up to the task. The criticism is no longer confined to background grumbling. It has gone public, and it is coming from people who once backed him.
Rufus Gifford, who served as finance chair of former Vice President Kamala Harris's 2024 presidential campaign, published a Substack post this week delivering a blunt verdict on Martin's future. Gifford wrote:
"At this point, I think there is no saving Martin's chairmanship. He is a good man with good intentions but simply not meeting this critical moment."
That is not a Republican talking. That is a senior Democratic fundraiser, someone who helped run the money operation for the party's last presidential nominee, saying publicly that the chair of his own party cannot be saved. The fact that he felt the need to say it on the record tells you where things stand inside the DNC.
The numbers are the hardest part of Martin's record to explain away. Federal campaign finance reports filed in July show the RNC raised close to $17 million in June and had more than $128 million in the bank. The DNC raised more than $10 million in the same month, and is essentially $2 million in debt.
That cash gap matters. Midterm elections are expensive, and the party that controls neither the White House nor Congress needs every dollar it can find to compete in targeted races. Instead, the DNC is borrowing.
Last fall, the committee took out a $15 million line of credit. A loan agreement filed with the Federal Elections Commission indicated that real estate, including the DNC's Washington, D.C., headquarters, could be used as collateral. The Hill reported that Washington, D.C., property deeds, first uncovered by NOTUS, confirmed the DNC specifically pledged its headquarters building to back the loan.
A DNC official told reporters the headquarters had been used as collateral before, in 2014, 2018, and 2019. That may be true. But it does not change the optics of a party committee mortgaging its own building while its rival sits on nine figures in cash reserves.
Martin pushed back on the financial narrative in a Substack post published last week, claiming the DNC had raised record sums for a committee operating without a president in the White House:
"The current DNC has raised the most money of any DNC without the White House in the 198-year history of the Democratic Party. Through June 2026, this DNC reported total receipts of more than $207 million. During the comparable 18-month period of the last Trump-era cycle, when Democrats were also out of the White House and rebuilding toward a midterm election, the DNC reported $109 million."
Those figures come from Martin himself and have not been independently verified in the reporting. Even if accurate, they do not address the debt or the cash-on-hand deficit. Raising money is one thing. Having it available when races heat up is another.
The financial picture alone would be enough to worry party operatives. But Martin's problems go beyond the balance sheet.
Earlier this month, Martin threw a phone at an aide's desk in what was described as a moment of frustration. The aide filed a complaint with the DNC's human resources department. The New York Times reported that Martin subsequently met with HR over the incident. The DNC declined to comment to The Hill about it.
No details have emerged about whether the aide was physically at the desk when the phone landed, whether the complaint has been resolved, or what consequences, if any, followed. But the incident fed a narrative that was already building, that Martin's management style is part of the problem.
Democratic strategist Eddie Vale, who said he tried to give Martin time to grow into the role, told The Hill the situation has only gotten worse:
"There was a pretty long time I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, and space to grow into the role, but clearly it has just continued to get worse."
Vale went further, saying Martin's struggles extend beyond strategy into personal conduct:
"And from the recent articles and discussion with folks, it's also beyond these strategic and tactical decisions and that he is focused on personal attention and grudge holding rather than what is best for winning elections."
He also pointed to Martin's track record before taking the national job. Martin ran the Minnesota state party from 2011 to 2025, a tenure Democrats there considered successful, the party did not lose a statewide race during that stretch. But Vale suggested warning signs existed even then:
"I think people had hopes from him running a successful state party but didn't listen to the warnings from people about these personality issues happening there as well as him coming in thinking he knew best versus being willing to learn or grow."
This spring, Martin released a much-anticipated autopsy of the Democrats' 2024 election losses. The report was supposed to offer a clear-eyed assessment of what went wrong and chart a path forward. Instead, Democrats complained about errors and omissions, and the document became another flashpoint.
Martin distanced himself from the final product, saying he did not endorse the report and that it had not met his standards. He added that "transparency is paramount." But an unnamed Democratic strategist told The Hill the damage was already done:
"I think the autopsy was the beginning of the end. No one was happy with the result."
For a party chairman, releasing a major report and then disclaiming it is a difficult position. It raises the question of who was in charge of the process, and whether the chair has control of his own operation.
Democratic strategist Joel Payne framed the challenge in structural terms:
"Any party chair is going to be judged on the ability to raise resources, the ability to build party infrastructure and their political judgement and it's clear Ken has faced challenges across the board with all three of those buckets throughout his tenure."
Payne added that Martin faces "a difficult task ahead to demonstrate that he can alleviate those concerns."
The New York Times also reported that the DNC asked vendors to submit invoices after the election, a move that raises questions about the committee's ability to pay its bills on a normal schedule. DNC Executive Director Roger Lau pushed back on that characterization, calling it "nothing more than standard negotiations with vendors over contracts and payment processes."
South Carolina DNC member Carol Fowler acknowledged the cash concerns but tried to offer a more favorable read:
"He's not keeping a bunch of money on hand... that's worrisome to some people because we are getting close to the election. But on the other hand, I believe the money has been spent on things that are going to help us."
Fowler said South Carolina's state party is better prepared for the midterms than it has been under some previous DNC chairs. That may be cold comfort to national Democrats watching the RNC's $128 million war chest from across a $2 million hole.
Not everyone in the party has abandoned Martin. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries reiterated his support for the chairman over the weekend. And DNC member Michael Kapp, a Martin ally, mounted an aggressive defense of the chair's record:
"Under Ken Martin's leadership the DNC has broken virtually every fundraising record for a chair when we don't hold the White House. And Democrats are overperforming in nine out of 10 competitive races."
Kapp went further, questioning the motives of Martin's critics:
"By any objective measure, that's not a party in crisis, it's a party building something real. I have to question anyone who looks at these facts and says Ken Martin is struggling in this job."
He accused Martin's detractors of "planting hit pieces in the press because he cut off D.C. consultants from the DNC gravy train." That argument, that the criticism is driven by insiders who lost access to party money, is a familiar one in Washington. It may even be partly true. But it does not account for the FEC filings, the debt, the phone incident, or the botched autopsy.
Kapp's claim that Democrats are overperforming in nine out of ten competitive races was not independently verified in the reporting, and the specific races were not identified.
The timing of this internal revolt is what makes it consequential. Midterm elections are approaching, and the DNC is the national infrastructure that funds field operations, voter data, and coordinated campaigns across every competitive district and state. A party committee consumed by leadership drama, financial strain, and workplace complaints is a party committee not doing its job.
Previous DNC chairs Tom Perez and Jaime Harrison both sought to improve party infrastructure during their tenures, with mixed results. The role is inherently difficult, raising money without a sitting president as the party's chief fundraiser is a grind. But Martin's predecessors did not face public calls from their own side's senior fundraisers to step aside.
Eddie Vale summed up the broader concern: Martin's troubles are "hurting the other committees and candidates with poor fundraising." If the DNC cannot raise and distribute money effectively, the damage flows downhill to Senate, House, and state-level campaigns that depend on national party support.
When a party's own strategists, fundraisers, and committee members go on the record saying the chairman cannot do the job, the question is no longer whether there is a problem, it is whether anyone on the Democratic side has the will to fix it before voters do it for them.
