Democratic National Committee (DNC)

As of 2026, longtime Democratic Party operative Ken Martin was serving as the chair of the DNC. ^{2 3}

Senior Leadership

As of 2026, longtime Democratic Party operative Ken Martin was serving as the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Martin was the former chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party, the former president of the Association of State Democratic Committees, and the former vice chair of the DNC. ^{2 3}

In March 2026, Axios reported that the Democratic Party and the DNC were increasingly unconfident in Ken Martin’s leadership. The report alleged that the DNC was “dysfunctional,” that it had been in “a perpetual state of near-insolvency” since the 2024 election, and that it had been beset by “finger-pointing” that Martin had been unable to quell. The sources interviewed by Axios, despite allegedly consisting of Martin’s allies and “would-be allies,” said that Martin was thin-skinned about criticism and that Democratic donors and party officials felt they were unable to express their concerns. Martin’s close connection with “longtime allies” from his home state of Minnesota led insiders to dub the relationship the “Minnesota Mafia.” ⁴

In the fall of 2025, Martin allegedly promised more money to races in Virginia and New Jersey than the DNC was ultimately able to provide, leading Martin to gain a reputation for “over-promising and under-delivering.” The DNC had taken out s $15 million loan in October 2025 to temporarily patch over its financial problems. As of March 2026, the DNC was more than $17 million in debt and had only $15 million on hand, and leaders were privately discussing rounds of layoffs in the spring and summer of 2026. ⁴

from 2021 through 2025, the Democratic National Committee was chaired by Jaime Harrison. Harrison previously worked as the Chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party and was a Democratic candidate for Senate, a bid which he ultimately lost despite setting a fundraising record for South Carolina Senate races. ⁵ Harrison was appointed an Associate Chair of the DNC in 2017 by his predecessor Tom Perez. In early 2021, then-President-elect Joe Biden designated Harrison to replace Perez as head of the DNC. ⁶

Structure

In addition to the state-level, territorial-level, and District of Columbia Democratic Party organizations operating under the DNC, the DNC oversees Democrats Abroad, which organizes the nine million registered Democrats living outside the United States. Democrats Abroad’s main function is to register Democrats living in foreign countries to vote in elections. ⁷ It is operated by the Democratic Party Committee Abroad (DPCA) and has six DNC members in addition to its global chair and vice chair being DNC affiliates. ⁸

Democratic National Convention

The DNC organizes the Democratic National Convention every four years to nominate the Democratic Party’s candidate for President. Democratic candidates compete for the support of about 4,800 party delegates spread throughout the country. The first candidate to receive a majority of the delegate votes is chosen to as the Democratic nominee. ⁹

In addition to the nearly 4,000 “pledged delegates” awarded to nominees by the states through primaries, caucuses, and other voting processes, the Convention also includes nearly 800 “unpledged delegates,” commonly known as “superdelegates.” Unlike normal delegates, superdelegates may vote independently for any candidate of their personal choosing. The superdelegates include the sitting Democratic governors, Democratic U.S. Representatives, Democratic U.S. Senators. “Distinguished party leaders,” including all former Democratic Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Congressional leaders, also attend as superdelegates. More than half of the superdelegates are party members who are elected by the DNC who may or may not have elected or unelected political positions. ⁹

The superdelegate system has been accused of being undemocratic by permitting the DNC’s leadership to override popular support and sway the party electorate to choose the Democratic Party leadership’s preferred candidate.  ^{10 11 9}

In 2018, DNC leaders voted to impose limits on their own ability to choose presidential nominees, increasing the power of primaries and caucuses. ¹² Then, in the 2020 nomination process, the DNC revised the primary rules to limit the voting power of superdelegates. Most notably, the Committee decided that if a candidate wins more than 50 percent of the pledged delegates, then he or she is chosen as the nominee and superdelegate votes are ignored. These reforms were widely seen as a reaction to criticisms of the DNC regarding the defeat of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the 2016 presidential primary elections after former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received more than 10 times as many superdelegate votes.  ⁹

Fundraising and Expenditures

2020 Election Cycle

During the 2020 election cycle, the Democratic National Committee raised $457,426,472, more than twice as much as it raised in 2018, and 50% more than in 2016. As of December 2020, the DNC reported over $24 million in cash reserves. ¹³

In 2020, the DNC’s largest donor was Mike Bloomberg 2020, the political action committee (PAC) that formerly supported the candidacy of billionaire Michael Bloomberg. After dropping out of the race in March of 2020, Bloomberg transferred $18 million to the DNC, making it by far the largest donation in the DNC’s history. Americans for Public Trust, a right-of-center government watch organization, challenged the transfer, alleging that the move violated campaign finance regulations because Bloomberg had already surpassed the personal party contribution limit. Regulators did not block the donation. ^{13 14}

Companies whose employees and executives led other contributors to the DNC in the 2020 election cycle were Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company), Bain Capital, Microsoft, the University of California, and Renaissance Technologies. ¹⁵

In the 2020 election cycle, the DNC spent $441,984,879, compared to just under $180 million in 2018 and under $370 million in 2016. ¹⁶ The DNC helped to coordinate $472,385 in expenditures on behalf of the Presidential campaign of Joe Biden. ¹⁷

In the 2020 election cycle, the DNC provided more funding to GMMB Consulting than any other entity, sending the firm 11 payments totaling $26 million. Bully Pulpit Interactive, founded by former Obama campaign staffer Andrew Bleeker, was the second largest recipient of DNC funding, receiving 25 payments totaling almost $25 million. RWT Productions received 317 payments totaling over $23 million. ¹⁶

Among state-level Democratic Party organizations, the Democratic Party of Florida was the largest recipient of DNC support, receiving 88 donations totaling over $10 million. The other largest recipients were the Democratic Parties of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arizona. ¹⁶

The DNC directly contributed $10,000 to four Democratic candidates: then-U.S. Representatives Elaine Luria (D-VA), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA). ¹⁸

At the end of 2025, according to a story by the New York Times, the DNC spent $6.5 million towards buying the email list of supporters used by former Vice President and 2024 Democratic Presidential candidate Kamela Harris. It was reported the money went towards paying off Harris’ 2024 campaign expenses, while the DNC reported that by January 2026 it was nearly $100 million behind the Republican National Committee (RNC). ¹⁹

2022 and 2024 Election Cycles

During the 2022 midterm election cycle, the three Democratic Party national-level committees—the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)—together raised approximately $966 million and spent approximately $980 million. The three Republican committees raised $875 million and spent $943 million during the same period. ²⁰

The 2024 election cycle proved significantly more lucrative for the Democratic committees. Following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race on July 21, 2024, and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, the DNC reported raising a record $6.5 million in online donations within hours of the announcement. By August 31, 2024, the three Democratic committees had raised a cumulative $809 million and spent $715 million, surpassing Democratic fundraising at the same point in the 2020 cycle ($695 million) and the 2022 cycle ($698 million). As of August 30th, 2024, the DNC alone had spent approximately $365.8 million, including transfers to other political committees, nearly $100 million more than the Republican National Committee had spent at that point. ^{21 22 23}

Despite the fundraising advantage, the DNC entered September 2024 with roughly $50 million in cash on hand, approximately $10 million less than what the RNC had on hand, attributable to the DNC’s higher rate of expenditures throughout the cycle. The DNC’s fundraising edge narrowed after former President Donald Trump’s May 30, 2024 criminal conviction on state charges in New York triggered a surge in Republican small-dollar donations principally through fundraising conduit WinRed. For the full 2024 election cycle, the three Democratic national-level committees raised a cumulative $1.3 billion and spent $1.3 billion, compared to the three Republican committees, which raised and spent approximately $1 billion. ^{23 24 25}

Federal Lobbyist Donations

In 2008, DNC finance chair and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) announced a prohibition on donations from federal lobbyists, emulating President Barack Obama’s successful 2008 Presidential campaign in which he refused to accept donations from lobbyists. In 2016, former DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) ended the policy. ²⁶f

Controversies

Watergate

In early 1972, persons associated with then-President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign were implicated in an attempt to break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. and to plant electronic monitoring devices to steal campaign intelligence. Four burglars were caught on their second break-in attempt while replacing microphone equipment. Though President Richard Nixon was unaware of the initial plot, he denied the involvement of his administration, and then engaged in various acts of obstruction against official investigations, including paying hush money to the burglars and ordering the CIA to hinder the FBI’s investigation. President Nixon was eventually ordered to turn over tape recordings of private discussions in the Oval Office, and he was recommended for impeachment by the House Judiciary Committee. Fearing removal from office, President Nixon became the first and only president to resign from office in 1974. He was pardoned by his successor, President Gerald Ford. ²⁷

Chinagate

In September 1996, the Los Angeles Times broke a story alleging that the DNC was receiving millions of dollars in donations from the government of the People’s Republic of China through various front-organizations and individuals. Amid the controversy, the DNC returned $3 million in questionable donations, which largely came from DNC fundraisers John Huang and Yah Lin Trie. ²⁸

In 2002, the DNC agreed to pay $115,000 in fines and turn over an additional $128,000 to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for various fundraising violations committed in 1995 and 1996. The FEC eventually determined that a set of donations totaling more than $1 million were likely financed and coordinated by the Chinese government in a bid to support the reelection of former President Bill Clinton against Republican challenger Bob Dole. The FEC commissioned $719,500 in fines in total, the largest being $120,000 levied against the International Buddhist Progress Society, a front for the Chinese government. ²⁸

The FEC initially recommended far larger fines on the DNC, but the three Democratic commissioners on the FEC voted to block the extra fines. ²⁹

2016 Computer Hacks

In 2015 and 2016, hackers infiltrated DNC servers and stole thousands of private emails, campaign memos, and pieces of opposition research. In June of 2016, cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike released a report detailing evidence of two DNC security breaches, including one that had been ongoing for at least a year. Crowdstrike attributed the hacks to two separate Russian intelligence agencies. The following day, an anonymous hacker using the pseudonym Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for the hacks and claimed that he had no association with the Russian government. Cybersecurity firms Fidelis Cybersecurity and Mandiant then investigated the DNC servers and corroborated Crowdstrike’s claims that Russian intelligence agencies were behind the attacks. ³⁰

In July 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers in connection with the Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks hacks. Then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote the indictment and alleged that the officers worked for a Russian military agency known as the GRU that deliberately attempted to interfere with the 2016 election. However, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said there was no evidence that the hacking affected the outcome of the 2016 election, and stated there was also no evidence that “any American was a knowing participant in the alleged unlawful activity.” ^{31 32}

While the U.S. government alleged that the email hacking was perpetrated by Russian military intelligence, the Russian government denied involvement.  ³³

Podesta Email Leaks

In July 2016, Wikileaks released 20,000 emails from the personal account of former White House Chief of Staff and Hilary Clinton presidential campaign chair John Podesta. The emails revealed embarrassing details about the DNC’s behind-the-scenes conduct, including Clinton’s close ties to Wall Street banks, brainstorming sessions for political hit jobs against then-Republican candidate Donald Trump, and evidence of the DNC leadership’s bias against U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the Democratic primaries. ³⁴

Though Wikileaks founder Julian Assange refused to reveal the source of the emails, there was widespread media speculation that Russian intelligence had hacked the DNC and given the emails to Wikileaks to sway the presidential election against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. ³⁵

In July 2016, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump was widely criticized by media outlets for publicly inviting the Russian government to hack Clinton’s emails to discover the location of 30,000 emails Clinton deleted after revelations that she had been using a private email server during her time as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama. ³⁶

The report of the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections concluded that while Russian military intelligence was behind the spear-phishing attack on Podesta, there was no evidence that Trump campaign officials or people connected to Trump had coordinated with the Russian hacking effort. ³³

Accusations of Collusion against Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Presidential Primaries

Both during and after the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, critics accused DNC leadership of colluding against left-wing U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in favor of candidate Hillary Clinton, who was widely perceived to be favored by the Democratic Party establishment. The Podesta emails revealed that DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other top-ranking officials privately supported Clinton and derided Sen. Sanders. For instance, one group of emails showed DNC officials trying to get Sen. Sanders to reveal his religion during speeches in West Virginia and Kentucky to diminish his popularity with Christian voters. While no emails indicate explicit attempts to rig the election against Sen. Sanders, the emails revealed bias among DNC leadership. ³⁷

Following the leaks, Wasserman Schultz and the DNC leadership publicly apologized to Sen. Sanders and his supporters. One group of Sen. Sanders supporters responded by chanting “lock her up” at a protest against Clinton in Philadelphia. ³⁸In late July 2016, Wasserman Schultz resigned from the DNC along with many of her aides. President Trump accused Clinton of pressuring Wasserman Schultz to resign, though the Clinton campaign denied the accusation. ³⁹

In her 2017 book, Hacks: The Inside Story of Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile detailed a plausible case for the DNC rigging the primaries against Sen. Sanders. According to Brazile, the DNC took out tens of millions of dollars’ worth of debt to finance the re-election of President Barack Obama in 2012. The DNC had planned to pay off its debt by the 2016 Presidential election, but the DNC was still $2 million in debt by 2016. Brazile alleged that the DNC made a deal with Clinton to use her campaign funds to pay off the debt in return for increased control over the DNC. Allegedly, Clinton used this influence to hire loyalists in key positions and tilt the DNC against her main primary opponent, Sen. Sanders. ⁴⁰

Brazile would later claim that further investigations found “no evidence” that the Democratic primaries were rigged against Sen. Sanders. Likewise, Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) publicly stated that the primaries were rigged, and then later recanted her statement. ⁴⁰

Many of Sen. Sanders’s supporters pointed to the behavior of Democratic superdelegates as evidence of collusion, characterizing them as the establishment’s forces who independently choose candidates regardless of the will of voting constituents. Of the nearly 800 superdelegates during the 2016 primaries, Sen. Sanders received only 45 votes, while Clinton received 571. Though Clinton would eventually win by 1,000 votes, supporters of Sen. Sanders have argued that the superdelegates’ overwhelming support for Clinton swung the Democratic National Convention’s momentum and propelled Clinton to victory in the primaries. ⁹

According to Vox founder Ezra Klein, although the DNC’s leadership and Clinton’s appointees wanted Clinton to win, the changes they implemented in the DNC’s processes actually helped Sen. Sanders and penalized other Democratic contenders in the 2020 primary, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. Klein argued that by shoring up DNC support before the primaries, Clinton eliminated mainstream Democratic competitors and cleared the field for a left-wing candidate like Sen. Sanders to have a chance in the race. Meanwhile, Klein argued, the process changes implemented by Clinton appointees in the DNC were innocuous and had no serious effect on the primaries. ⁴⁰

After the election, a group of Sen. Sanders’s supporters filed Wilding v. DNC Services Corp., a class-action lawsuit against the DNC on the grounds of fraud for allegedly rigging the Democratic primaries against Sen. Sanders. The case was dismissed in federal court. Though the judge did not dispute the claims of bias against Sanders in the DNC leadership, he found no evidence that the DNC had violated its legal parameters or election law. ⁴¹

2020 Iowa Caucus Application Failure

The February 3, 2020 Iowa Democratic presidential caucus was the first nominating contest of the 2020 primary cycle and was marred by the failure of a smartphone application known as Shadow developed by the Iowa Democratic Party under a process that involved DNC oversight. The DNC had played an advisory role in the app’s development, including recommending a cybersecurity vendor, approving plans, and suggesting contract language granting the vendor back-door monitoring access. The app failed to report results on caucus night, leading to a multi-day delay in announcing the outcome. Then-DNC chair Tom Perez called publicly for a full recanvass of the results, then-Iowa Democratic Party chair Troy Price resigned on February 12, 2020, and the Associated Press declined to declare a winner due to discrepancies in the precinct vote records. Final results were not certified until February 29th, 2020. ^{42 43 44 45 46}

The debacle accelerated existing pressure within the Democratic Party to strip Iowa of its first-in-the-nation caucus status, a position it had held for Democrats since 1972. Critics cited the state’s predominantly white electorate as unrepresentative of the Democratic coalition, and the caucus format’s logistical barriers as obstacles to participation. The Iowa caucus failure contributed directly to the DNC’s decision to restructure its 2024 presidential primary calendar. ^{47 48 49 50}

2024 Presidential Primary Calendar Restructuring

On February 4, 2023, the full DNC voted to overhaul its presidential primary calendar for 2024, removing Iowa from the early-state window entirely and designating South Carolina as the first official primary state on February 3, 2024. New Hampshire and Nevada were placed second on February 6, followed by Georgia on February 13 and Michigan on February 27. The vote ratified a December 2022 recommendation by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee and was supported by then-President Joe Biden, who, in a letter to the committee, described caucuses as “inherently anti-participatory” and called for a calendar that would prioritize states with diverse electorates. Then-DNC chair Jaime Harrison stated that the proposal “puts Black voters at the front of the process in South Carolina.” ^{51 52 53 54 55}

Critics of the new calendar, including representatives from the Iowa and New Hampshire Democratic delegations, argued the changes were impractical given state laws and were designed to protect an incumbent president from a primary challenge. New Hampshire, whose state law requires it to hold its primary before any other state, refused to comply with the DNC’s calendar and held an unsanctioned primary on January 23, 2024. Then-President Biden did not appear on the New Hampshire ballot, winning the unsanctioned contest as a write-in candidate. A DNC committeewoman from New Hampshire warned that Biden’s absence from the ballot could “provide an opening to an insurgent candidate” to win the first primary of the cycle. Ultimately, only South Carolina, Nevada, and Michigan held Democratic primaries on the DNC-prescribed dates during the 2024 primary election. ^{56 57 58}

2024 Presidential Nominee Replacement

Following then-President Joe Biden’s widely criticized performance at a June 27, 2024 debate against then-former President Donald Trump, sustained internal Democratic Party pressure led President Biden to announce his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race on July 21, 2024. Critics argued that President Biden had faced no meaningful primary challenge in part because the DNC’s restructured 2024 calendar, and delegate rules had been designed while he was an incumbent seeking reelection. President Biden endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor, and she quickly secured the support of a majority of Democratic delegates without a contested primary vote. She was formally nominated at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024. ^{59 60 61 62}

The succession process drew criticism from multiple directions. Republican figures, including U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), described President Biden’s departure and replacement by Vice President Harris as a “coup” orchestrated by party elites and donors. Political analysts noted that Vice President Harris became the nominee without a single primary vote cast for her, which was the first time since 1968 that convention delegates, rather than primary voters, effectively selected the Democratic presidential nominee. The Black Lives Matter organization issued a statement demanding a “snap primary” before the convention, criticizing Democratic leaders for “anointing” Harris and warning that political opponents would characterize her nomination as a “DEI move.” A report from Factcheck.org, however, claimed that election law experts argued the process was fully consistent with Democratic Party rules, under which delegates retain discretion in their votes at the convention. ^{63 64 65 66 67}

2024 Chicago Convention Protests

The 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, held August 19 to 22, 2024 at the city’s United Center, was accompanied by significant outside protests over U.S. policy toward Israel during its military campaign in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks. A coalition of more than 200 organizations had organized what it called the “March on the DNC,” with demonstrations occurring throughout the convention. Chicago police reported 56 arrests at an unsanctioned protest on the evening of August 20 following clashes between demonstrators and officers in riot gear. ^{68 69}

Inside the convention, a group of “Uncommitted” delegates, representatives of a movement of that had organized protest votes against then-President Biden in Democratic primaries across the country in opposition to U.S. arms transfers to Israel, staged a sit-in outside the United Center after DNC organizers rejected their demand that a Palestinian American speaker be given a slot on the convention’s main speaker list. According to Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan and a leader of the Uncommitted National Movement, the DNC declined the request following negotiations. Alawieh stated that party officials told them “no.” The DNC did invite the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli who was held hostage in Gaza, to speak at the convention on its third day, where they called for a ceasefire and hostage-release deal. ^{68 70 71 72}

Some commentators suggested that the convention controversy over Gaza reflected broader tensions within the Democratic coalition. According to a 2026 Pew Research Center survey, 80 percent of Democrats had an unfavorable view of Israel, compared to 69 percent in 2024, and compared to 53 percent in 2022, before the start of the Gaza conflict. ^{73 74}

Platform and Policy Positions

The Democratic National Committee releases a formal party platform every four years at the Democratic National Convention, outlining the policy priorities that guide Democratic candidates at all levels of government. ⁷⁵

The 2024 platform, adopted by the full DNC membership on August 19, 2024 at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, was drafted by the Platform Committee and approved in a virtual 139-2 vote on July 16, 2024, before then-President Joe Biden formally withdrew from the presidential race. The platform pledged to restore “Roe v. Wade as the law of the land,” pursue expanded gun control measures, and expand immigration while securing the border. ^{76 77 78}

Abortion

The DNC’s 2024 platform called for federal legislation to codify the protections for abortion access formerly established by Roe v. Wade, which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned in its June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The platform pledged to “protect a woman’s right to access IVF” and maintain access to abortion medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The DNC characterized access to abortion as a “fundamental freedom” and made restoration of federal abortion protections one of its central 2024 campaign themes. ^{79 75 80}

Gun Control

The 2024 DNC platform advocated for expanded restrictions on firearms, including legislation to require universal background checks and impose safe storage requirements. The platform also called for a ban on what it called “assault weapons,” as well as high-capacity magazines, strengthening existing background check systems, and investment in community violence intervention programs. The DNC framed gun control policy under the heading of “Protecting Communities from the Scourge of Gun Violence.” ^{75 80}

Immigration

The DNC’s 2024 platform called for the U.S. Congress to pass legislation it claimed would simultaneously “secure our border,” reform the asylum system, expand legal immigration, and “keep families together by supporting long-term undocumented individuals.” The platform committed to “securing the future” by supporting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and indicated that any “lasting, comprehensive reforms for border security require congressional action.” The DNC also called for a pathway to citizenship for long-term unauthorized immigrants. ^{75 80}

Criminal Justice

The 2024 DNC platform argued that “no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana” and claimed the practice of imprisoning people for drug possession creates barriers to employment that are “disproportionately affecting Black and brown people.” It stated its intentions to “develop community-based alternatives to prison for young people” so as to “prevent disparate discipline of children of color and with disabilities,” expand access to Pell Grants “so people can earn a college degree while they are incarcerated,” and to invest federal funding into “job training, addiction recovery, and reentry services across the country.” In addition to funding criminal justice reform efforts aimed at reducing “inequity and justice system involvement,” the platform announced the party’s intention to expand the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division by hiring more Assistant U.S. Attorneys and directing them to “combat hate crimes.” ^{75 80}

Climate and Energy Policy

The 2024 DNC platform committed to scaling up weather-dependent energy sources, including “solar, wind, and battery” projects funded under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, with a stated goal of tripling so-called clean-energy generation by 2030 and “reducing Big Oil’s hold on our economy.” The platform called for scaling back what it described as “tens of billions of dollars” in traditional energy subsidies and framed investment in weather-dependent energy as inseparable from economic development and job creation. The DNC also pledged to protect existing federal environmental regulations and opposed efforts by the second Trump administration to eliminate the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). ^{75 80}

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The DNC maintains an internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) program overseen by a designated DEI Steering Committee. The counsel and director for DEI collaborates with the DNC’s state operations director to help state Democratic parties establish and achieve DEI goals. Internal DEI infrastructure also includes employee resource groups (ERGs) and a Heritage Month and Staff Recognition Working Group. ⁸¹

At the DNC’s August 2025 summer meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the DNC’s Resolutions Committee unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming what it called the “American Values” of diversity, equity, and inclusion, which was then put to a vote of the full DNC membership, which at that time included more than 400 members. The vote came months after President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders in early 2025 directing federal agencies to dismantle DEI programs, which his administration characterized as “illegal and immoral discrimination programs.” At the DNC meeting, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who had served as Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate, stated that Democrats were “proud to be a diverse party” and would not be “shying away from diversity as a strength and equity as a goal and inclusion being the air we breathe.” ^{82 83 84}