Former DNC Staffer: Chair Ken Martin Has Made Himself ‘Pretty Irrelevant’

You love to see it. The DNC continues to be broke and full of bad blood between supporters of chair Ken Martin and those who seem convinced he’s not the man for the moment. CNN published a lengthy story today about the internal conflict which never seems to let up. At the center of the problem is a lack of money, thanks in part to the DNC getting stuck paying off millions in debt from the Harris campaign and now having to pay legal bills for Joe Biden.

All sorts of Democratic organizations are short on cash and high on infighting, while the party’s far left calls for primary challenges against its leaders and President Donald Trump pressures Democratic-run cities and institutions. But Martin and the DNC are at the center of the party’s crisis, struggling to raise money and dealing with the aftermath of last year’s loss as the Democratic brand hits record lows in popularity.

The DNC is paying Joe Biden’s legal bills for the investigation that House Republicans have launched into the former president’s mental acuity while in office, sources told CNN. The tab for Biden’s legal expenses has reached hundreds of thousands of dollars, one of the sources said. And there were millions in debt from Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign that even those involved have trouble putting an exact number on given the intertwining of finances between the campaign and the DNC. That debt has almost been paid off…

The Republican National Committee is far ahead of the DNC in both donor enthusiasm and actual money. The RNC reported $84.3 million on hand at the end of July, six times the DNC’s reported $13.9 million.

The result is that Democratic activists and former DNC staffers keep reaching the same conclusion about the current DNC led by Ken Martin: It’s mostly irrelevant.

The DNC is “almost irrelevant,” said Tory Gavito, a Democratic activist and president of Way to Win, a group made up of major donors.

“The party isn’t where the heart of the movement is,” she said, instead pointing to mass protest movements such as the “No Kings” demonstrations in June…

Former chairs and other DNC officials have conferred in dismay about what they see as missed opportunities. Operatives leading Democrats’ marquee races for the fall say they’ve gotten used to shrugging off what Martin says.

“He won by playing a lot of small ball — and this is not a time for small ball,” a former DNC officer told CNN. “This is a time for us to be surgical and ruthless, and he’s made himself pretty irrelevant because of all the promises he made.”

How much impact is Ken Martin having on the conversation right now? Not much. He recently posted a video on X trying to pump up the Trump resistance. It didn’t inspire much of anything.

He cut a DNC video in an echoing room with a blank white wall behind him, sprinkling in a few deliberately dropped curses in expressing his frustration. Reposts and likes for his post on X totaled fewer than 1,000.

In Chicago and beyond, several leading Democrats quietly joked to one another about his line that the party needed to bring “a knife to a knife fight.”

Here’s the clip where he supports the Texas Democrats who fled the state. It probably doesn’t help that Martin is dwarfed by the person holding the microphone. He looks small and never once turns to face the camera. The whole performance isn’t very inspiring. He’s basically repeating all the “save democracy” tropes Democrats went all in on in the last election. Those obviously didn’t work for them then and they seem even more empty now as he’s literally praising Democrats for stopping the democratic process in Texas. 500 likes on this post seems generous.

Trump and Abbott’s cheating power grab in Texas is bullshit.

Texas Democrats are leading with strength while Republicans attack their state. pic.twitter.com/QZpt8UHM9C

— Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) August 6, 2025

So that’s the leader of the DNC at this moment. He’s not inspiring much of anything except internal criticism and articles like this one at CNN questioning whether Dems made a mistake electing him.

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