Democrats have a new talking point for the 2026 midterms, and it&#8217;s a doozy: the party wants you to believe the whole 2020-era meltdown (defund the police, kente-cloth photo ops, hyperfixation on gender and sex) was just a weird, isolated fever it caught during lockdown and has since fully recovered from. <a href="https://www.deseret.com/politics/2026/08/12/aoc-says-woke-1-was-crazy/">Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez kicked off the branding exercise on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week&#8221;</a>, borrowing a line from a New York City councilman: &#8220;Woke 1 was crazy.&#8221; Within days, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/mamdani-shrugs-off-aocswoke-1-comments-critic-says-progressives-cant-absolved-radical-past">New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was echoing the same line at a press conference</a>, insisting &#8220;what you believe can change&#8221; while distancing himself from his own defund-the-police past. It&#8217;s not one congresswoman having a candid moment. It&#8217;s a coordinated cycle-wide message: Woke 1 is dead, don&#8217;t worry about it, just yell about Israel and “Medicare for All.”
Here&#8217;s the problem with the sales pitch: nobody bothered to tell the rest of the party that Woke 1 was supposed to have left the building.
Start with the DNC&#8217;s own leadership circus this year. David Hogg — the Parkland-shooting-survivor-turned-professional-activist the party spent years grooming as the &#8220;future&#8221; — got elected DNC vice chair back in February. Then Oklahoma Democratic operative Kalyn Free filed a complaint arguing the election process <a href="https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/stolen-election-dnc-to-review-vice-chair-david-hoggs-election-victory-amid-race-and-gender-discrimination-allegations/">&#8220;discriminated against three women of color candidates&#8221;</a> by allowing two men to sweep both vice-chair slots. The DNC&#8217;s Credentials Committee agreed, voided the results, and forced a do-over — and Hogg, reading the room, quietly declined to run again. The most prominent young progressive in the party got bumped from his own leadership seat for being insufficiently diverse on the one axis that actually mattered to the people running the process: being white and male. That&#8217;s not a 2020 relic. That happened this year, inside the DNC&#8217;s own headquarters, to the party&#8217;s handpicked golden boy — using the exact same racial-and-gender-box-checking logic Democrats now want to pretend was a temporary lockdown hallucination.
Then there&#8217;s the WNBA, an entire professional sports league that spent the better part of this year unable to answer the single easiest question in sports: what is a woman? After Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham had the audacity to say that biological men shouldn&#8217;t compete against women, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/wnba-fight-males-womens-sports-exposes-left-keeps-answering-question-nobody-asked">the league&#8217;s response was weeks of statements about &#8220;hate, abuse, and demonization&#8221;</a> and a major meeting on women… just to come back empty-headed and empty-skulled. When two former NBA players declared for the draft specifically to force the issue, the league quietly ruled them ineligible without ever rewriting a rulebook that still just says &#8220;only players who are women are eligible.&#8221; The reason the WNBA can&#8217;t answer the question isn&#8217;t confusion: <a href="https://townhall.com/news/mattvespa/2026/08/28/the-wnbas-stance-on-transgender-players-just-got-messier-n2682055">the league already let a female player transition to male mid-career and publicly celebrated it at the time</a>. Defining &#8220;woman&#8221; now would mean admitting the gender ideology it embraced circa 2020 already broke its own rules. That&#8217;s not a relic of the past. That&#8217;s a live mess this month, in the exact institutions that never got the memo Woke 1 supposedly ended.
When the Supreme Court&#8217;s Louisiana v. Callais decision gutted the race-based redistricting regime that had propped up dozens of &#8220;safe&#8221; congressional seats, Democratic leadership didn&#8217;t respond like a party that had grown past racial sorting. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries went on national television and accused the Court&#8217;s majority of <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2026/08/17/while-trying-to-avoid-court-packing-question-jeffries-all-but-admits-he-supports-it/">&#8220;unleashing Jim Crow-like tactics&#8221;</a> and doing &#8220;the bidding of extreme MAGA Republicans,&#8221; then <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/supreme-court/4563840/jeffries-threatens-judicial-reform-post-voting-rights-ruling/">declared &#8220;everything should be on the table,&#8221; including &#8220;massive judicial reform&#8221;</a>, to get race-based maps reinstated. Strip away the theater and what he&#8217;s demanding is the restoration of a system explicitly built to sort American voters by skin color. By Ballotpedia&#8217;s own count, <a href="https://spectator.org/the-democrats-may-not-survive-callais-ruling/">148 House seats nationwide — more than half of the entire Democratic caucus — currently exist in their present shape because race, not geography, dictated the lines</a>. The sitting House Minority Leader isn&#8217;t nostalgic for Woke 1&#8217;s racial framework. He&#8217;s actively campaigning to keep it running in 2026.
Woke 1 didn&#8217;t die somewhere between the lockdown and the vaccine rollout, and it isn&#8217;t a cringe-inducing vocabulary word the party has wisely retired. It&#8217;s alive in the DNC&#8217;s own leadership fights, alive in the WNBA locker room, and alive every time the House Minority Leader demands the law keep treating Black voters and white voters as different species who need different maps. Democrats aren&#8217;t running away from Woke 1 this cycle; they&#8217;re just hoping you&#8217;ll laugh along with the branding long enough not to notice they never actually left.
***
The Daily Signal is listed for identification purposes only. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect any institutional position for The Daily Signal or its Board of Directors. 
Tony Kinnett is the senior national correspondent for The Daily Signal and host of its flagship nationally syndicated radio/TV show and podcast, &#8220;The Tony Kinnett Cast.&#8221; Follow him on X @TheTonus.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Woke 1 Never Left Because It Is The Left

alexandria ocasio-cortez

democratic national committee

hakeem jeffries

opinion

woke ideology

zohran mamdani

Democrats have decided they need to use thirst traps in order to win the midterm elections. Now you may be asking yourself, “What’s a thirst trap?” or “What’s an election?” or “Who is that woman in bed next to me and why is there blood everywhere?” Because that’s the sort of audience I attract. And to be honest, I can only answer some of those questions.
A thirst trap is a social media post with a photo or video designed to catch your attention by showing you something attractive and sexy. And Democrats are looking for sexually attractive candidates to catch your attention and make you think, wow, it’s so hot the way they pretend to be socialists who would only destroy our economy to hide the fact they’re actually Islamists who want to murder us all.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/andrew-klavan-show-ep-1292"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-974735 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1536x256.jpg 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" /></a>
For instance, Democrats feel if muscular Michigan Senate candidate and terrorist sympathizer Abdul El-Sayed hits the campaign trail wearing tight t-shirts, he might attract the kind of women who would otherwise forget to vote because they’re too busy writing love letters to Luigi Mangione.
Or maybe spindly little Georgia Senate Candidate Jon Ossoff could give speeches in an open-neck shirt to attract large muscular homosexuals who were recently released from prison and are looking for a new b*tch. Or Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might appear dressed in a bizarrely low-cut nun’s habit entirely made of latex while carrying a whip and a lighted cigarette — or maybe that was just a dream I had. Then I woke up screaming, thinking I’d voted for AOC. Brrrr.
Anyway, in a series of tests funded by the Democratic National Committee, potential female voters were shown a picture of El-Sayed flexing his biceps, followed by a picture of Senator Chuck Schumer trying to stand up straight and pretend he still has a soul. The women were then asked:
<blockquote>Would you be willing to destroy 250 years of American liberty and prosperity for fifteen minutes of having El-Sayed tear off your burka while you scream &#8216;Take me, take me, you steaming hunk of Islamist garbage,&#8217; or would you prefer to just go on and on in your drab day to day life where every evening your daydreams are shattered when Chuck Schumer comes through the door calling out, &#8216;Hi, Honey, I’m home,&#8217; until every dream you ever had of romance and adventure withers and dies?</blockquote>
In 68% of the cases, the female Democrats said they would gladly vote for the handsome El-Sayed as long as he promised to bring back the patriarchy, which actually, now that they think about it, was kind of great.
The Democrats then wanted to test pictures of attractive female candidates on potential male voters. Unfortunately, I’d already made an AOC joke, and every other female Democrat either looks like a used boot or has a mouth on her that makes you want to become a celibate monk in a religious retreat run by a nun wearing the low-cut latex habit she got from the old AOC joke.
Finally, desperate to find a pretty Democrat woman for their study, the DNC showed male voters a photograph of Krystal Ball, the Democrat beauty whose 2010 Virginia congressional campaign ended in scandal when pictures surfaced of her dressed in a sexy Santa outfit while wrapping her lips around a sex toy strapped to the nose of her then-husband. Ninety-five percent of the men said they would gladly vote for the catastrophe of socialism if they could just become a sex toy strapped to the nose of Krystal Ball’s former husband, even if only in their imaginations. In fact, some of the male voters said they might even vote for communism if Chuck Schumer would just stop coming through their wife’s door, calling out, “Hi, Honey, I’m home.”
But the Democrats’ obsession with finding attractive candidates is not just a reflection of their shallow and perverted notion of sexuality with its propensity for meaningless, fetishistic hookups. Democrat leaders feel that if they can enlist candidates with a youthful, vibrant aura, it will return them to their glory days when voters were swept away by the sex appeal of Barack Obama because he destroyed the American health care system with such macho vitality, you could almost believe he was straight.

DNC Pivots To Tactical Thirst Traps To Make Socialism Look Sexy

abdul el-sayed

chuck schumer

jon ossoff

satire

In just one year, Baltimore went from being ranked the third-most dangerous city in the United States — with murders averaging nearly 300 per year over the past decade — to looking like a completely different city in 2026.
From January to August, 60 people were murdered in Baltimore, but just four years ago, that number was about 160 in the same timeframe. The White House attributes the drop in crime to the “relentless efforts” of President Trump. Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the White House, told The Daily Wire. 
“In Baltimore and across the nation, violent crime is reaching record lows — including the murder rate reaching a 125-year low,” Bis said.
It’s not just Baltimore; nationwide murder rates have fallen 18.1%, rape has dropped 7.6%, robbery has fallen 18.5%, and aggravated assault is down by 7.2% since 2025. Trump’s Department of Justice has directed federal prosecutors to crackdown on crime and pushed them to pursue higher charges. 
After former Attorney General Pam Bondi was sworn in last year, she <a href="https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/justice-dept.-releases-slate-of-memos-from-attorney-general-bondi">signed</a> 14 memos, including one that renewed enforcement of the federal death penalty, which was halted under the Biden administration. Other memos urged prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” and focus on immigration enforcement, human trafficking, transnational organized crime, and “protecting law enforcement.”
The Trump administration also worked to secure the border and deport illegal immigrants. In Baltimore alone, ICE officials arrested Edwin Sanchez Montiel, an MS-13 gang member and illegal alien from El Salvador whose criminal history included murder. Federal immigration officers also arrested Franklin Chavarria and Julio Gonzalez-Cortez, both illegal immigrants convicted of murder.
In its violent crime crackdown, the Trump administration streamlined processes with states. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said she <a href="https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2025/9/crime/trump-s-crime-crackdown-has-been-a-huge-success-here-s-how-congress-can-support-it">worked</a> with the FBI and the Department of Justice to “surge resources to Memphis, where federal law enforcement have apprehended gang members who have plagued the city with violent crime.” 
Bis added that Trump is working to correct policies from “defund-the-Police Democrats.” 
“President Trump promised to make America safe again and the data proves he has done just that. Unlike Defund-the-Police Democrats who release violent criminal illegal aliens into our communities and want cashless bail, President Trump is on the side of law and order and will continue to deliver safe neighborhoods for American families,” she added. 
“Defund the Police” statements have become so unpopular that many Democrats and democratic socialists are running away from their past radical statements as midterm elections approach. 
&#8220;I have a local city councilman that has this saying, &#8216;Woke 1 was crazy.'&#8221; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwAnMLBSOw">said</a> in an interview with ABC, adding, “What’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.”
Michigan Democratic Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed walked back his statements on defunding the police and deleted past posts on the issue on X. At the Democratic National Committee meeting on Saturday, the DNC <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dnc-formally-adopts-resolution-calling-for-abolishing-ice">adopted</a> a resolution urging congressional Democrats to abolish ICE. The vote is nonbinding and does not change the party platform for 2028.
The reform measure, sponsored by DNC Chairman Ken Martin, drew broader support in committee than the abolition proposal.
 &#8220;The one thing that unites Democrats, regardless of their position on reform versus abolish or whatever other ways to change what&#8217;s happening, is people believe that what ICE is doing right now and CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] and the federal government should stop. There has to be a better way,&#8221; <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/dnc-votes-back-eliminating-ice-trump-expands-deportations-12327959">said</a> Martin.

US-NEWS-BALTIMORE-POLICE-SHOOTING-BZ

White House Touts Historic Crime Shift As DNC Votes To Abolish ICE

baltimore

crime

donald trump

politics

The Democratic National Committee adopted a resolution Saturday urging congressional Democrats to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), alongside a competing measure calling only for reforms to the agency, at the party&#8217;s summer meeting in Austin, Texas.
The abolition measure, known as Resolution 27, cleared the DNC&#8217;s Resolutions Committee on Thursday in a 25-12 vote with one abstention before heading to the full membership, Newsweek <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/dnc-votes-back-eliminating-ice-trump-expands-deportations-12327959">reported</a>. Both resolutions were bundled into a larger package and approved by the full membership on a unanimous voice vote, <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/aug/15/dnc-passes-dueling-ice-resolutions-establishment-insurgents-clash/">according</a> to the Washington Times. The vote is nonbinding and does not change the party platform for 2028.
The reform measure, sponsored by DNC Chairman Ken Martin, drew broader support in committee than the abolition proposal.
The vote comes amid internal party debates over immigration policy ahead of this year’s midterm elections as President Donald Trump expands deportation efforts. In July, border czar Tom Homan said ICE was on schedule to set arrest records for a second consecutive month and described the push as “<a href="https://x.com/johnnymaga/status/2080472034807541833">deportation-maxxing.</a>”
The resolution calls on Democratic members of Congress to enact legislation dissolving ICE and winding down the immigration detention system. It seeks to restrict Department of Homeland Security funding unless certain enforcement activities end, including workplace raids, mass roundups, arrests at courthouses, arrests at ICE check-ins, and actions near schools and houses of worship. It also calls for terminating contracts with private detention providers.
Martin said official party platforms are set every four years at the national convention, and argued Democrats are still united in opposing the administration&#8217;s enforcement approach even as they split over what should replace it.
“Our official party positions are determined at the convention every four years in our platform,” Martin said in a statement to Newsweek. “However, clearly, the one thing that unites Democrats, regardless of their position on reform versus abolish or whatever other ways to change what’s happening, is people believe that what ICE is doing right now and CBP and the federal government should stop. There has to be a better way.”
The White House criticized the action. Spokeswoman Lauren Bis told Newsweek on Saturday:
&#8220;Extreme radical Democrats want to abolish ICE and defund the police. Instead of trying to abolish ICE, Democrats should be thanking ICE law enforcement officers for putting their lives on the line to arrest and remove murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and gang members from American communities. Many of these criminals were released from jails by Democrat radical politicians. President Trump&#8217;s efforts to remove criminal illegal aliens from American communities is already delivering results including the lowest murder rate in 125 years.&#8221;
The resolution also calls for closing detention facilities, releasing most immigration detainees, and expanding civil rights oversight.
Michele Johnson, a DNC member from Louisiana who proposed the abolition measure, said Democrats need to take a clear position, pointing to the dissolution of ICE&#8217;s predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, as precedent, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/democrats-dnc-2028-primary-immigration-ice-106d35d404491c87b4f3a64b4119677e">according</a> to the Associated Press.
“I think one of the reasons why people are not trusting the party is because we sound so academic,” she said. “We sound focus group tested, we sound poll tested because we’re worried about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and not just like, just stand on business, like take a position.”
DNC member Yvonne Reeves-Chong voted against it, saying it would win over only part of the party&#8217;s base while drawing fire from another group of voters, according to the AP.
“I would strongly suggest we get to the business of winning races so we can make the policies that make a difference,” she said.
Earlier this year, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stopped short of calling for ICE’s elimination while demanding reforms such as banning face coverings for agents, requiring visible identification, and restricting enforcement near schools and churches.
Polling suggests voters are focused elsewhere. Marquette Law School&#8217;s most recent national <a href="https://today.marquette.edu/2026/08/new-marquette-law-school-poll-national-survey-finds-inflation-and-cost-of-living-the-most-important-issue-economy-next-most-important/">survey</a>, released August 5, found inflation and the cost of living ranked as the top issue for 35% of adults, with immigration and border security at 5% — down from 14% in January.
The same poll found Trump&#8217;s overall approval had risen to 40%, his first uptick in a Marquette survey this term, and border security was the only issue on which he cleared 50% approval.
ICE itself remains unpopular. A Marquette <a href="https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2026/02/04/new-marquette-law-school-national-survey-finds-60-disapprove-of-the-work-of-ice-with-democrats-and-independents-opposed-to-ice-and-republicans-in-favor/">survey</a> conducted in late January found 40% of adults approved of the agency&#8217;s job performance and 60% disapproved. But the same poll found 56% still favored deporting illegal immigrants, and among that group, 65% approved of ICE&#8217;s conduct.
Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at the center-left group Third Way, has argued that immigration should not be Democrats&#8217; first message to voters because it is not their top concern — but that ignoring the issue is also a mistake. Democrats &#8220;cannot allow Republicans to be the only party offering a vision&#8221; on immigration, she told Newsweek.

Ken Martin, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) state convention, Rochester, Minn., May 29, 2026

‘Abolish ICE’ Is Now Official DNC Policy

immigration and customs enforcement

immigration policy

ken martin

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&#8217;s not long for the job. He landed in hot water when he reportedly threw his phone at a staffer&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-supreme-court-restores-some-common-sense-to-campaign-finance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NRSC v. FEC</a> that limits on coordinated expenditures between political parties and candidates violated the First Amendment.
&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t change the money that&#8217;s available to party committees,&#8221; 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. &#8220;It changes how party committees are able to spend it.&#8221;
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 <a href="https://rollcall.com/2026/07/16/democratic-candidates-sustain-fundraising-pace-as-gop-strains-to-keep-up/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posting enormous fundraising numbers</a>. 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 &#8220;haves&#8221; are nationally recognizable candidates capable of raising tens of millions of dollars on their own. The &#8220;have-nots&#8221; 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 &#8220;a Cadillac plan everywhere,&#8221; while Democrats increasingly must decide which candidates deserve outside investment and which will largely fend for themselves.
&#8220;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,&#8221; Furst Johnson said. &#8220;But if you truly view parties as just bill payers, then it&#8217;s no wonder you&#8217;re looking at this fundraising disparity.&#8221;
That disparity may prove lethal for Martin. Democratic strategist Eddie Vale recently told <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5992626-democrats-patience-dnc-ken-martin-midterms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Hill</a> that the DNC chair&#8217;s poor fundraising is &#8220;hurting the other committees and candidates,&#8221; while former Kamala Harris campaign finance chair Rufus Gifford declared there is &#8220;no saving Martin&#8217;s chairmanship.&#8221;
Martin&#8217;s critics also point to his handling of the party&#8217;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&#8217;s fundraising deficit.

US-VOTE-POLITICS-DEMOCRATIC-CONVENTION

What The Democrats’ Cash Crunch Means For 2026 And Beyond

2026 midterm election

nrsc v fec

republican national committee

The Democratic National Committee&#8217;s effort to explain and learn from its 2024 election losses has descended into fresh controversy after the author of the party&#8217;s official postmortem claimed Democratic leaders omitted an entire chapter examining what went wrong.
According to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/us/politics/democrats-autopsy-2024-election-dnc.html">New York Times</a>, Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, who authored the DNC&#8217;s after-action review, says a 28-page chapter titled &#8220;What Happened in 2024&#8221; was missing when the party released the report in May after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrats-finally-admit-what-went-wrong-in-2024">delaying publication</a> for nearly a year.
The omitted chapter reportedly addressed some of the most politically sensitive questions surrounding Democrats&#8217; defeat, including whether former President Joe Biden should have sought reelection, the party&#8217;s declining support among key voting blocs, and what Rivera described as a self-enriching Democratic consultant class that had become disconnected from ordinary Americans.
&#8220;An emerging critique of Democratic decision-making is there are too many people who have become generationally wealthy off politics and drive too much of the decision-making within the ecosystem,&#8221; Rivera wrote in the missing chapter, which he provided to the Times. 
He also questioned Biden&#8217;s decision to remain in the race. 
&#8220;Is there a single point of failure for 2024? Perhaps it is a decision of the President to seek re-election instead of passing the torch,&#8221; the chapter states.
Rivera says he personally handed DNC Chairman Ken Martin a three-ring binder containing the completed chapter during a January meeting after Martin criticized the draft report. Rivera said Martin later returned the binder after reviewing it.
Martin denied ever receiving the missing section. 
&#8220;As we said at the time, in May we released all of the draft report as we&#8217;d received it from the author,&#8221; Martin said in a statement to the Times. &#8220;If we had this in May, we would have released it with the rest of the report.&#8221; 
Martin maintained that the January meeting focused solely on &#8220;lessons learned&#8221; materials for internal planning, not on new report chapters, arguing that neither he nor the DNC ever reviewed the disputed document.
The dispute comes after the DNC initially announced it would not release an official autopsy of the 2024 election, with Martin arguing the effort had become a distraction. He later reversed course amid mounting pressure, publishing an annotated draft in May while insisting it was &#8220;not ready for primetime&#8221; and refusing to endorse its conclusions.
Rivera told the Times he decided to go public because he believes Democrats cannot fix their problems without candid self-examination.
 &#8220;It&#8217;s coming from a place of hope and, honestly, a little bit of desperation,&#8221; Rivera said. &#8220;There&#8217;s a very comfortable ecosystem that will profit mightily from no change.&#8221;
The controversy comes as Martin is already facing growing scrutiny over his leadership. The DNC recently <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00010603/#&amp;_intcmp=fnc_media_article_main-content_article-body_6_2">reported</a> having roughly $16.3 million cash on hand while carrying $18.5 million in debt. Martin has also come under fire following <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/07/26/us-news/raging-dnc-boss-ken-martin-threw-phone-at-aides-desk-as-committee-forced-to-put-up-hq-as-loan-collateral-report/">reports</a> that he threw his cellphone at a staffer&#8217;s desk during an internal dispute, prompting a human resources complaint, as well as comments suggesting he was uncertain how much longer he would remain in the position.
With fewer than 100 days until the midterm elections, the dispute over whether Democrats buried the most politically explosive section of their own election autopsy will likely do little to assuage concerns about whether party leadership has fully come to terms with the reasons behind its 2024 defeat.

Ken Martin

One Chapter Never Made It Into Democrats’ 2024 Election Autopsy

2024 election

joe biden

The cash-strapped Democratic National Committee is in full-blown meltdown, according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/26/us/politics/ken-martin-dnc-democrats.html">New York Times report</a>, with its chair, Ken Martin, descending into fear and “a growing sense of paranoia” about his job security. 
Facing a cash crunch, the Democratic National Committee has asked vendors to hold off on sending bills until after the midterms, The Times reported — an unusual move exposing the party&#8217;s financial struggles with just a few months left before the November election.
The comparative financial status of the two parties is stark: President Trump has a $400 million war chest — and the RNC has another $130 million available — and the DNC is reportedly about $2 million in debt, according to The Times. 
Martin is reportedly growing increasingly anxious about the DNC&#8217;s financial woes and whether or not he will be able to keep his job. The chairman, responsible for fundraising, party operations, and campaign infrastructure, is &#8220;relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts,&#8221; The Times reported Sunday.
The outlet painted a picture of a rattled DNC chairman, who, in early July, reportedly hurled his phone at the desk of a junior aide while scolding the individual. The alleged incident was severe enough to result in a formal Human Resources complaint. Martin declined to comment. 
In a separate story, <a href="https://www.notus.org/democrats/dnc-headquarters-collateral-loan-ken-martin-phone">NOTUS</a> reported Sunday that the Democratic National Committee used its headquarters as collateral last year to secure a $15 million line of credit to fund off-year elections.
Some left-wing commentators on Sunday hit the panic button
“This is not sustainable,” said MS NOW host Joe Scarborough. “Anyone who cares about the Democratic Party — including Ken Martin — would say &#8216;Enough.&#8217; The DNC is flat broke. This must change now.&#8221; 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This is not sustainable. 
Anyone who cares about the Democratic Party—including Ken Martin—would say “Enough”. 
The DNC is flat broke. 
This must change now. <a href="https://t.co/Zse52CO2nO">https://t.co/Zse52CO2nO</a>
— Joe Scarborough (@ScarboroughNow) <a href="https://x.com/ScarboroughNow/status/2081380915813445857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2026</a></blockquote>
It&#8217;s the latest blow to the embattled DNC chairman, who faced withering criticism over his handling of the party&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrats-finally-admit-what-went-wrong-in-2024">so-called 2024 autopsy</a> examining Kamala Harris&#8217; loss to President Donald Trump.
In May, Martin defended releasing the report after delaying it for months, telling CNN: “After last November’s massive Democratic wins, I didn’t want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction.”
“The future could become even more difficult. Demographic and population projections indicate an accelerating population shift away from traditionally Democratic states,” the report found. “With radical midterm redistricting efforts underway, the writing is on the wall, and the call is coming from inside the House. We either adapt to the changing conditions of the arena, or history will leave us behind.”

DNC Chair Has Phone-Hurling Tantrum As Party Melts Down Over Midterm Cash

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New Mexico Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham went full feminist, declaring that Democrats don&#8217;t need male votes. 
“If women, Democratic women, just show up and vote, we’re good. We don’t need any of the men.” 
Grisham made the remarks during a Democratic National Committee meeting on Thursday, focused on preparations for the 2028 presidential election.
As provocative as the remark may sound, the electoral trends behind it are real. Democrats are increasingly dependent on women voters, who have been the driving force behind many of the party&#8217;s recent victories.
Democratic governors Abigail Spanberger (VA) and Mikie Sherrill (NJ) both won overwhelming support from women while receiving far weaker support from men. Spanberger won the support of <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/women-voters-key-democratic-gubernatorial-wins-2025">65%</a>  of women voters but just 48% of men. Sherrill posted a similar divide, carrying <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/women-voters-key-democratic-gubernatorial-wins-2025">62%</a>  of women while receiving support from 49% of men.
The broader electorate reflects the same pattern. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, women are substantially more likely than men to identify with the Democratic Party. Women also vote at higher rates than men. In the 2024 election, approximately <a href="https://www.lwv.org/blog/report-women-voters-numbers-2024">91.3 million</a> women cast ballots, compared with 82.6 million men.
Experts have spent decades trying to explain the growing gender gap.
“Women consistently rank healthcare, education, and social safety nets as top priorities, while men more frequently emphasize economic growth, national security, and fiscal responsibility,” <a href="https://rebeccakreitzer.com/blog/how-gender-influences-political-opinions-in-america-2025/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">writes</a> University of North Carolina Associate Professor of Public Policy Rebecca J. Kreitzer. 
According to Kreitzer, the modern gender gap emerged during the 1980 presidential election and has steadily widened ever since. What was a relatively modest four-to-six-point difference in the 1980s grew to roughly 12-to-15 points in a majority of races by 2020.
Roosevelt Institute Suzanne Kahn <a href="https://time.com/5903399/gender-gap-politics/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">tied</a> the decline to women voting for “their economic interests” that Democrats have targeted through government programs and benefits.  
“The two parties’ increasing polarization around cultural issues might have been grabbing headlines, but women were looking at their wallets when deciding who to vote for, and one party was clearly doing more for them,” Kahn wrote. 
The gender gap is amplified by another reality: women participate in elections at higher rates than men. According to Rutgers University&#8217;s <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/data/voters/gender-differences-voter-registration-and-turnout?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Center</a> for American Women and Politics, “Women have registered and voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980.”
The DNC’s recently released 2024 election autopsy <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/4-takeaways-from-the-dncs-long-awaited-2024-election-autopsy-report?utm_source=chatgpt.com">acknowledged</a> the party’s struggles with male voters and concluded they required “direct engagement.” The report recommended that Democrats “deploy male messengers, address economic concerns, and don&#8217;t assume identity politics will hold male voters of color.”
Grisham&#8217;s comments reflect a broader reality for Democrats. As women have become the party&#8217;s most reliable voting bloc, party strategists are searching for ways to attract men to their cause.

Girl Math: Democrat Gov Says Party Doesn’t Need Any Male Voters

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On April 6, The Free Press ran a <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-vatican-and-the-white-house">story</a> claiming the Pentagon summoned the Vatican&#8217;s apostolic nuncio to a meeting, and invoked the Avignon Papacy, threatening the Vatican. The <a href="https://x.com/DOWResponse/status/2042300020494418303">Department of War</a>, <a href="https://x.com/BrianBurchUSA/status/2042307511504519366">Ambassador Brian Burch</a>, and the <a href="https://www.ewtnnews.com/vatican/media-narrative-about-nuncio-s-pentagon-meeting-untrue-vatican-says">Vatican</a> all put out statements saying the &#8220;threatening&#8221; meeting story is completely untrue. DNC progressive Catholic operative Christopher Hale, however, spent all week pushing and amplifying the story even after it was shown to be false.
On April 9, Pope Leo XIV <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/pope-leo-xiv-meeting-david-axelrod-obama-advisor/">met with</a> David Axelrod, the former senior advisor to President Obama. Then, on April 10, the Pope made a clearly <a href="https://x.com/Pontifex/status/2042588417578668338">pacifist, anti-war statement</a> aimed at the Trump administration. To cap it all off, CBS aired a &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; episode on Sunday, April 12, with three of the most liberal cardinals in the American Catholic Church who spoke in opposition to the Iran war and against the deportation of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, social media erupted with provocative arguments over who is to blame for America’s moral and spiritual collapse: Catholics or Protestants?
Without a doubt, there is a political operation underway to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pope-leo-responds-after-trump-calls-him-weak?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Pope+Leo+Responds+After+Trump+Calls+Him+%E2%80%98Weak%E2%80%99">set up a confrontation</a> between the Vatican and the United States. The goal is to divide conservative Catholic voters from the Evangelical bloc — an established and battle-tested political tactic, cynical and craven as it may be. This has the fingerprints of the DNC and NGO operatives all over it, and the liberal progressives within the Catholic Church are working in their service.
Non-Catholic Americans need to understand there is a serious intra-Catholic war going on between the liberal progressives within the Church and those who are trying to keep the Church faithful to its 2,000 years of Biblical teaching. This war has been hot since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Just like the Protestant progressives, the Catholic Church has a large segment of that generation that wants to do to Catholicism what the Protestant progressives have done elsewhere, not only on issues like abortion, sexuality, and women&#8217;s ordination, but in the liberalizing of the entire political and social order. Decades ago Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger fought hard against Communists and Socialists within the Church who were using Marxist ideology to form what is now called Liberation Theology — a politicization of the Gospel. Cardinal Ratzinger knew it posed a threat to the distinction between Church and State.
As a well-assimilated Iraqi Christian immigrant to America, who journeyed through different Protestant denominations until I converted to Catholicism ten years ago, I can say without a doubt that the only reason there is such a strong, faithful, intelligent, fruitful Catholic community in America is because of the kind of nation our Protestant brethren founded in 1776. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI praised the freedoms created by the American system — this shared, common freedom Founding Fathers built allows both Protestants/Evangelicals and Catholics to grow without the meddling hand of the government.
One can admire the traditions, customs, and observances of the Catholics in Europe, but they are a small community that hold no sway in the public squares of their countries. In spite of what seems to be a recent increase in Catholic converts in France, Catholicism as an institution, like its political counterpart in Europe has become a “polite and orderly caretakers of the West&#8217;s managed decline,” to use Secretary Marco Rubio&#8217;s words.
Some may boast about the Catholic evangelization of South America centuries ago, but Latin America today offers a different picture: societies in moral decline, an anemic Catholic Church losing people to the Pentecostal movement, and corrupt governments unable to provide even basic safety for their citizens.
American Catholicism has a “conservative” segment for two reasons: the faithful presence of our Evangelical and Protestant brethren, which encourages us to remain steadfast in Scriptural teaching, and the blessed miracle of American religious liberty.
European Catholics complain that American Catholics are more American than Catholic, they phrase it in this way because what they cannot tolerate to say is that American Catholics are overall more faithful Christians than European Catholics. And that faithfulness is the wonderful fruit of being in America.
The reason why America has not fully given itself over to the globalist progressive agenda is due primarily to the Evangelicals who have held the line, and their conservative Catholic counterpart who have partnered with them. These two groups have worked hard together in spite of theological differences. The next destructive ideology that needs defeating is the Islamist totalitarianism of the Islamists seeking world domination. Like Pope John Paul II who stood up against Communism, Pope Leo XIV should be working against that ideology, not chastising the only country in the world that has expansive religious freedoms.
Conservative Christians of all stripes need to see this political op for what it is and hold the line, for the good of us all, and for the good of all American citizens.
* * *
Luma Simms is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Vatican Pool Images 2026

The Real Target In This Vatican Drama Isn’t Rome. It’s American Voters.

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The Democratic Party is insisting that basic law enforcement action against illegal immigrants, particularly criminal illegal immigrants, is some sort of violation of the American compact. They are, astonishingly, equating the American system with the Iranian ayatollahs in terms of tyranny. 
That is the case currently being made by Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee.
And it’s nuts.
The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/ken-martin-dnc-ice-donald-trump-iran-renee-good-ee393f1e?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqfhG8GUKeO8i8pRXbhSPQ-_Fcv_8DrnExtMG4lDLLwfMCiYuS3EPmunTq1dqXk%3D&amp;gaa_ts=69693e81&amp;gaa_sig=Bhn77IXYRUIPQsFvjsdV-YyKHIRO_XSupTQYSh-LjlWNsFRe6JKgW0tRbM62DzetJBMdDKOZlibDV-WRTYtQMQ%3D%3D">reported</a>:
<blockquote>As President Trump cancels meetings with the Iranian regime, increases the economic pressure and promises imminent help for the protesters being slaughtered in the streets, the Democratic Party’s boss has chimed in. Consider what Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee Chairman, has to say:
“From Tehran to my birthplace of Minneapolis, people are rising up against systems that wield violence without accountability,” Mr. Martin wrote Sunday on social media. “Solidarity across borders means opposing authoritarian power everywhere and defending the right to live free from fear and state violence.”
When told that the continuing massacres by Iran’s regime and the tragic, split-second Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by a U.S. law-enforcement officer aren’t the same, Mr. Martin plunged deeper into moral equivalence.
“If comparing the U.S. to Iran makes you angry, ask why,” he wrote. “Killing protesters. Crushing dissent. Kidnapping and disappearing legal citizens. Ignoring courts. Threatening critics. Terrorizing communities. That’s authoritarian behavior—anywhere.”</blockquote>
This is incredibly ironic, as the leader of the DNC — the party that has treated Hamas, Hezbollah, and all the various terror arms of Iran as some sort of half-political organizations, treated the Iranian government as a quasi-innocent in the region — now cites Iran as the repressive power to compare to President Trump, the president who actually struck Iran back in June of last year, blowing up their nuclear facility at Fordow.
It&#8217;s also amazing he compares the ayatollahs who are ordering the shooting of thousands of people in the streets to ICE agents enforcing criminal law while obstructed by benighted and misguided people.
“Killing protesters?” The Trump administration is not unleashing ICE to mass-shoot protesters. That&#8217;s insane. That&#8217;s psychotic.
And disgusting.
Ken Martin is out of his mind. “Kidnapping and disappearing legal citizens. Ignoring courts. Threatening critics. Terrorizing communities. That’s authoritarian behavior—anywhere.”
That is absolutely insane. The fact that Ken Martin would say such things is demonstrative of how disconnected the Democratic Party is from reality at its top levels.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2347-democrats-ice-is-just-like-the-ayatollahs?elementPosition=8&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
He&#8217;s not the only one who&#8217;s saying this, by the way. Representative Eugene Vindman of Virginia said on CNN, &#8220;We need to support the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom and independence. They&#8217;re protesting largely peacefully on the streets. And they&#8217;re being attacked and murdered. And I think, you know, there&#8217;s an irony, obviously, in what we see with ICE on America&#8217;s streets.&#8221;
Peter Baker of The New York Times was on MS NOW, where he declaimed, “People are watching the split screen situation of mass protests in Tehran and mass protests in Minneapolis. And of course, they&#8217;re looking to see how a president handles each of them. And while you really can&#8217;t compare the substance of these two very important issues happening for different parts of the planet, you can, I think, look at the rule of thumb that Donald Trump brings to it.”
“And I think the rule of thumb is pretty simple,” he continued. “If you&#8217;re protesting against a regime he disfavors, he opposes, then you&#8217;re heroes. If you&#8217;re protesting him or his policies, then you are illegitimate. You&#8217;re radicals. You&#8217;re radical Left lunatics.”
That&#8217;s ridiculous. If you are protesting the Ayatollah’s regime — the one where they murder you if you protest; the one where women are forced to wear hijabs; the one where they spread terrorism all over the region while impoverishing their people to the tune of no water or power in their capital — I don&#8217;t see how that is comparable to someone looting gun lockers in ICE vehicles in Minneapolis.
Why do Democrats and the Left embrace this equivalence? The truth is that they make excuses on a consistent basis for some of the worst people in the Middle East while ripping into governments that attempt to fight those people in the Middle East.
There&#8217;s been significantly more ire from the mainstream media at Israel for its action in the Gaza Strip, which was targeted action against a terrorist group hiding behind civilians, than there has been against the Iranian government thus far.
The enemy of good sense is the failure to speak basic truths.
There is a deeper agenda at work, of course. And that deeper agenda has to do with a Democratic party point of view that suggests that the importation of a large number of people from outside the United States inherently makes the United States culturally stronger.
That leads to this agenda: Don&#8217;t enforce immigration law.
The narrative that is being promoted by the Democrats and by the legacy media is that ICE is willy-nilly mass-arresting people for no reason at all based on the color of their skin.
That is a lie.
The vast majority of people that ICE is detaining and actually arresting after detention are criminals.
The Democrats are hoping that a little chaos and willfully misleading people will convince America to give up on immigration enforcement.
They are wrong.

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Democrats: ICE Is Just Like The Ayatollahs

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Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), attempted to blame President Donald Trump for the deadly shooting that took place in Washington, D.C., the day before Thanksgiving.
The suspect is an Afghan national, let into the United States during former President Joe Biden&#8217;s administration after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, who opened fire on National Guard troops in the nation&#8217;s capital. One, SPC. Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia, has died as a result of her injuries. But according to Wasserman Schultz, Trump was to blame for the horrific ambush attack.
WATCH;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Rep Wasserman-Schultz attempts to blame Trump for NG shoot*ng, cites deployments in cities and &#8220;gun violence” as causes:
“The president looks everywhere except inward to blame his own policies&#8230;and it’s pretty disgusting.&#8221;
This is what they’re actually going with here. Sick. <a href="https://t.co/BX5TAd367V">pic.twitter.com/BX5TAd367V</a>
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) <a href="https://twitter.com/WesternLensman/status/1994411786204840262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Wasserman Schultz, responding to President Trump&#8217;s plan to go back and revisit the vetting process for the Afghan nationals who were brought into the United States as refugees, noted that in order for someone to have slipped through the cracks, there had to have been failures at a number of levels.
&#8220;We need to make sure that we have tight and appropriate and proper vetting. If there were gaps that admitted this person, they would have failed over multiple levels of gaps, and this individual was trusted enough to participate in assisting our military during the war in Afghanistan,&#8221; Wasserman Schultz said.
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She then pivoted to blame Trump, adding, &#8220;The president looks everywhere except inward to blame his own policies. We need to make sure that we don&#8217;t have our military deployed in our cities, handling law enforcement responsibilities, and we need to make sure that we address gun violence. We certainly need to make sure that we always have the proper and appropriate and tight vetting processes and those should be reviewed, but it&#8217;s never the president&#8217;s fault or his policies when it comes to his reaction, and it’s pretty disgusting.&#8221;
What Wasserman Schultz failed to acknowledge, however, was the fact that people like Pentagon spokesman and Army Ranger veteran <a href="https://x.com/Surabees/status/1994030582116876620">Sean Parnell</a> had sounded the alarm even at the time, warning that some Afghans who had been trusted and had worked with American troops on the ground had betrayed them when it mattered.

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Former DNC Chair Blames Trump For National Guard Shooting

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The most likely employer listed by donors to the Democratic National Committee so far this year is actually no employer at all.
An analysis of donors listed by the DNC in its most <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00010603/?tab=raising">recent federal election filing</a> found that &#8220;not employed&#8221; was the top occupation listed in the filing, donating a total of $12 million so far in 2025.
Following “not employed,” some of the top occupations among DNC donors for 2025 include retired, attorney, physician, consultant, investor, professor, chairman, president, and CEO. 
By contrast, the top ten Republican occupations were retired, CEO, self-employed, chairman, founder, president, homemaker, entrepreneur, and investor. 
The donor profiles also show which states contribute the most. Four states appear on both parties’ top-ten lists: California, New York, Texas, and Illinois.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) gained the most donations in all four. California donors gave $6 million to the DNC but twice as much to the RNC — $12.2 million. New York Donors gave $2.9 million to the DNC compared to $4 million to the RNC. The pattern continued in Illinois with the RNC outpacing the DNC by $700,000. Texas gave $11.7 million to the RNC, compared with $1.5 million to the DNC. 
The DNC currently reports $12 million in cash on hand, while the RNC reports $86 million, revealing a $74 million gap between the two organizations. 
Additionally, the filings revealed <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/10/22/dnc-kamala-harris-campaign-debt">$1.6 million</a> paid to help pay down Kamala Harris’s 107-day campaign debt. She spent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kamala-paid-closer-to-2-5-million-for-oprah-sit-down-report-shows">$1.5 billion</a> during her run for the nation’s highest office. Her 2024 presidential campaign was notable for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kamala-paid-closer-to-2-5-million-for-oprah-sit-down-report-shows">high-profile</a> endorsements and performances by celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Cardi B, Jon Bon Jovi, and Beyoncé. 
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Despite financial constraints and $500,000 in outstanding loans, DNC Chair Ken Martin believes “there’s no such thing as an off year.” In a post on X, he highlighted the DNC’s commitment to hiring regional organizers and field staff across Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
There’s no such thing as an off year. The DNC is all-in on hiring regional organizers and field staff across Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey for the final sprint.
We’re going to spend the next two weeks fighting for every single vote. <a href="https://t.co/lPR1dKLXoc">https://t.co/lPR1dKLXoc</a>
— Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) <a href="https://twitter.com/kenmartin73/status/1980665062135328799?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Martin joined CNN host Dana Bash on Sunday and discussed the state of Democratic fundraising. Bash said the party had been struggling with donors, but Martin disagreed.
 “Fundraising is not going as poorly as you would suggest. We’ve raised a record amount of money in the first eight months of the year,” said Martin, who added that the main driver of funds was from grassroots contributions in small $5, $10, $15 monthly donations.

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