WASHINGTON—Ken Martin began the year with high hopes of rebuilding the Democratic Party. Today, the Democratic National Committee chairman is likely more concerned with keeping his job.
Morale is low at the DNC, the New York Times reported last month, in large part because Martin is acting as if the walls are closing in. The chairman reportedly makes macabre jokes about how he’s not long for the job. He landed in hot water when he reportedly threw his phone at a staffer’s desk during a tense exchange that resulted in a human resources complaint. Martin has also, the Times reports, grown increasingly frustrated by leaks and negative press surrounding the committee.
And then there’s the money. The DNC finished June with just $16.3 million cash on hand and $18.5 million in debt, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Things are so bad that Democratic Party officials have privately asked vendors to delay sending invoices until after the midterm elections, according to the Times.
The DNC disputes this report, but the party’s money troubles are real in other ways. Unlike its counterpart, the Republican National Committee is living large with $128.5 million in cash and no debt — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
According to recent FEC filings, Republican Party committees and their allied congressional super PACs held roughly $657 million in cash on hand at the end of June, compared to about $334 million for Democratic committees and their allied organizations. The gap grows even larger when including MAGA Inc., President Donald Trump’s allied super PAC, which alone reported having more than $400 million available for future spending.
For much of modern campaign history, that imbalance would have been significant. Today, it may be decisive.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled in NRSC v. FEC that limits on coordinated expenditures between political parties and candidates violated the First Amendment.
“It doesn’t change the money that’s available to party committees,” Jessica Furst Johnson, partner and co-chair of the political law practice at Lex Politica and counsel for the petitioners in NRSC v. FEC, told The Daily Wire. “It changes how party committees are able to spend it.”
That distinction substantially increases the value of institutional fundraising — precisely where Republicans currently hold their largest advantage.
Ironically, Democratic candidates themselves are hardly struggling. Several marquee Senate candidates continue posting enormous fundraising numbers. Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff has built a sizable financial advantage over Republican challenger Rep. Mike Collins, and former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has likewise amassed an impressive war chest for his Senate campaign.
But those individual successes increasingly mask a broader weakness.
Historically, national party committees existed to do more than simply pay campaign bills. They recruited candidates, coordinated messaging, directed resources toward vulnerable races, elevated lesser-known challengers, and built a unified national political strategy.
Without a financially healthy national committee, those responsibilities increasingly fall on individual candidates. Instead of one cohesive fundraising operation supporting dozens of competitive races, Democrats increasingly resemble a collection of independently wealthy campaigns.
The “haves” are nationally recognizable candidates capable of raising tens of millions of dollars on their own. The “have-nots” are first-time challengers, vulnerable incumbents, and down-ballot candidates who traditionally depended on the party machinery and allied organizations to amplify their campaigns.
One longtime Democratic strategist warned that Republicans now possess enough institutional money to execute “a Cadillac plan everywhere,” while Democrats increasingly must decide which candidates deserve outside investment and which will largely fend for themselves.
“Party committees have incredibly talented staff — very experienced, very strategic, working hard and long hours — and they add a lot to the overall political ecosystem,” Furst Johnson said. “But if you truly view parties as just bill payers, then it’s no wonder you’re looking at this fundraising disparity.”
That disparity may prove lethal for Martin. Democratic strategist Eddie Vale recently told The Hill that the DNC chair’s poor fundraising is “hurting the other committees and candidates,” while former Kamala Harris campaign finance chair Rufus Gifford declared there is “no saving Martin’s chairmanship.”
Martin’s critics also point to his handling of the party’s delayed 2024 election autopsy, which many Democrats criticized after its eventual release for containing major omissions and errors, along with recent reports that the committee lost roughly $29,000 in an email scam last year.
But those arguments may matter less than the broader structural reality now confronting Democrats. The party still has candidates capable of raising enormous sums of money, but it increasingly lacks a national organization capable of turning those isolated fundraising successes into a coordinated national strategy.
Now, after the Supreme Court made party committees substantially more valuable, that institutional weakness may prove far more damaging than any individual candidate’s fundraising deficit.
