Democrats have kept winning at the ballot box, but the Democratic National Committee’s chair, Ken Martin, is drawing a growing wave of internal doubt less than six months before the 2026 midterm elections, according to reporting from the Associated Press. Party officials and operatives say the challenge is not a loss of electoral momentum so much as a confidence problem that includes donors, allied strategists and influential voices questioning how the DNC is run.
The concerns have surfaced publicly and privately even as Martin’s allies point to recent election results under his watch. In addition, Amanda Litman, who leads the Democratic-allied group Run For Something, told AP that people in the party have lost faith in Martin and that rebuilding trust will be difficult.
Litman said she has been approached by senior strategists in recent days asking about replacing Martin. She declined, but she described a broader perception problem inside the party. “I think it’s a really hard job, and also Ken is not doing it very well,” Litman told AP. “I honestly think he’s going to have a hard time rebuilding trust.” She also said, “is that there’s not really an alternative.”
AP reported that some of the criticism has reached Martin and that two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity described private conversations in which they said Martin has become increasingly paranoid, including at party headquarters in Washington, where he did not install his own team after taking over last year. Martin has also sought to avoid interviews over the previous week, while focusing on improving the DNC’s financial health and scouting potential sites for the Democratic presidential convention in 2028, AP reported.
Former DNC chair Jaime Harrison, whom Martin replaced, said he was upset by Democrats publicly challenging Martin’s leadership. Harrison also criticized a recent appearance by Democratic operatives from the podcast “Pod Save America,” saying they pressed Martin on why he reneged on a promise to release a post-2024 election autopsy. Asked whether Martin’s job was at risk, Harrison said, “I don’t think so,” and urged Democrats to remain unified heading into November. “We have to be as strong as we possibly can going into November, because we have to win. Once we win, we can fight like hell,” Harrison said.
While Harrison and other allies acknowledge that Democrats do not have everything they want from the party’s internal functioning, the core argument from the Martin camp is that the DNC must stay operationally focused. AP reported that Martin is leaning into a 50-state spending strategy that supporters describe as risky but intentional, sending monthly resources to build or strengthen state-level party infrastructure.
Under that approach, the DNC is distributing $1 million each month among party organizations in every state and key U.S. territories, AP said, and allocating an additional $5,000 per month to nearly two dozen Republican-controlled states. The DNC’s financial situation, however, has become part of the internal debate. AP reported that the national party reported $22.1 million cash on hand and $18.4 million in debt at the end of March, based on its most recent federal filing, while the Republican National Committee reported $116.8 million in the bank with zero debt.
DNC national finance co-chair Chris Lowe defended the cash disparity as the result of strategy outlined when Martin ran for chair and implemented since taking over. Lowe told AP, “We made a conscious decision to spend money.” He said Martin’s view is that preparing for the 2028 presidential election requires not simply accumulating funds but building a record of winning elections across the country “up and down the ballot.” Lowe also pointed to fundraising momentum, saying Martin raised more money in his first year as chair than anyone else raised in an equivalent year when Democrats did not have the White House, and that the committee has exceeded its big-dollar fundraising targets every month so far in 2026.
At the same time, some Democrats argue that the internal focus on money is missing what matters most electorally. Michael Kapp, a California DNC member described as a vocal Martin ally, said he would “love to have big donors come on board,” but argued that the party’s bank account is not the determining metric. Kapp told AP, “Republicans can brag about having more money but they’re not spending it, and they’re not winning,” adding, “At the end of the day the scoreboard matters more than the spreadsheet.”
Beyond fundraising and spending, the AP report said the central flashpoint is Martin’s refusal to release the DNC’s internal study of the 2024 election, referred to inside the party as the “after-action report” and at times described in the report as a “secret autopsy.” Kapp said the report “certainly something that should be made public,” but he said Martin’s argument that the review is too close to the midterms is workable for now. “I know there are lessons to be learned from that,” Kapp said of the report. “I trust Ken. I’ve known the man for 10 years. But at this point, when we’re six, seven months away from the midterms, we need to be focused on the midterms.”
AP reported that Martin has been aggressively courting big-dollar donors despite their demonstrated reluctance to give to the committee, and that in some conversations he acknowledged pressure related to the autopsy. According to two people with direct knowledge of those discussions, changes could be coming soon, though they were not authorized to share details.
As Martin looks ahead to 2028 and the work of building political infrastructure for the party’s next presidential nominee, some prospective candidates are said to be watching the intraparty conflict cautiously. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, expected to launch a presidential bid, did not answer directly when asked whether Martin should continue to lead the DNC, AP reported. “Ken and I work well together. And I say that being somebody who wasn’t originally on board,” Beshear said. “But he made an effort to reach out to me. And, listen, I want to work with whoever’s there. We need a healthy DNC. We need it to work.”