Last week I wrote about the fact that the Democratic Party is having serious money problems. In every case you can look at, the party is way behind the fundraising of comparable groups on the Republican side of the aisle. But the situation is particularly grim for the DNC which isn’t just behind in fundraising; it’s actually in the red.
The DNC ended June with $16.3 million in cash and $18.5 million in debt — putting it about $2.2 million in the red. It is a staggering hole compared to the numbers of the Republican National Committee, which held $128.5 million and reported no debt.
For months, Martin and his allies have predicted that Democratic victories and the approaching midterms would bring major donors back. The midterms are now approaching. The money has not followed.
As Ed pointed out yesterday, we don’t even know how bad the situation really is because the DNC has been asking vendors not to bill them until after the midterms. So there may be more debt out there that we don’t know about and won’t until sometime in December.
In the center of this mess is Ken Martin. Martin is apparently struggling with the failure of the DNC to the point that he is now being internally investigated for throwing a phone at someone.
Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department.
The fallout from the phone-throwing episode was described by half a dozen people familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal party matters. None of them witnessed the encounter, and there was some dispute over how aggressively the phone was tossed. Mr. Martin was said to have thrown the phone at the desk, rather than at the aide.
Mr. Martin later met with D.N.C. human resources officials about his behavior, according to three of the people.
In addition to being irrationally angry, Martin is also said to be increasingly paranoid.
Even supporters acknowledge Mr. Martin’s growing sense of paranoia. He confronted the party’s finance director this spring over what he thought was a budding coup. And before he met with the top congressional Democrats, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, in mid-July, assurances were given to an ally of Mr. Martin’s that the two party leaders did not plan to use the gathering to call for the chairman’s resignation.
Martin wrote a lengthy defense of his tenure but ultimately no one can overlook the fact that the DNC is broke just months before the midterms. And that means it won’t be offering any help to candidates who might need it.
For more than a decade, the D.N.C. has transferred millions of dollars every election to sister committees responsible for winning the House and Senate. But the national party is now so short on cash — even after taking out a $15 million loan last year — that officials have privately conveyed to congressional leadership that there will be no such transfers in 2026.
That $15 million taken out last year is the largest loan the DNC has ever taken out. And as NOTUS reported recently, it used its own headquarters as collateral.
The Democratic National Committee put its physical headquarters up for collateral last year in order to obtain a $15 million line of credit to help invest in off-year elections, according to D.C. deed records not previously reported.
How perfectly symbolic would it be if the DNC got evicted and wound up homeless. It’s probably not possible. I assume someone in Hollywood would step up to rescue them before that happened. Still, the fact that they are absolutely broke three months before an election that, in many ways, ought to favor Democrats, is remarkable. Part of the problem is the Kamala Harris hangover.
Some of the problems are a hangover from 2024. While Vice President Kamala Harris raised record sums that year, her loss left many big Democratic donors disillusioned with the party. Her campaign also had millions in debt that the D.N.C. spent much of last year paying off, with Ms. Harris’s help…
The single biggest expense in the Martin era was $7.3 million to buy the remnants of Ms. Harris’s campaign list from her failed 2024 bid. Ms. Harris’s political action committee used the money to cover additional remaining debts.
That’s why they needed the $15 million loan last year. And they haven’t recovered since then. The flood of money that Martin predicted never came. Now it’s probably too late.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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