{"id":14562,"date":"2025-10-17T14:31:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ken-martin-says-dnc-chair-is-the-best-job-it-still-makes-him-want-to-pull-his-hair-out\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T14:31:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:31:44","slug":"ken-martin-says-dnc-chair-is-the-best-job-it-still-makes-him-want-to-pull-his-hair-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ken-martin-says-dnc-chair-is-the-best-job-it-still-makes-him-want-to-pull-his-hair-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Martin says DNC chair is the best job. It still makes him want to pull his hair out."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Ken Martin has been almost <\/i>everywhere since he became the chair of the Democratic National Committee, attempting to put out fires for a party in the wilderness as he has hopscotched some 33 states over the last eight months.<\/p>\n

Just this week, Martin quietly shuttled from Indianapolis, where Indiana Republicans are weighing mid-cycle redistricting at the demand of President Donald Trump, to Washington for the Supreme Court\u2019s oral arguments of Louisiana v. Callais <\/i>\u2014 which could weaken the Voting Rights Act and further set Democrats back \u2014 to Pittsburgh, where he campaigned for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention races.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people think I’ve got the shittiest job in America, but I feel like I’ve got the best job in America,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

But he also didn\u2019t mince words about the challenges and drama that it has brought to his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a day that I don\u2019t go home wanting to pull my hair out, because it\u2019s a tough job,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

With Election Day looming next month, New Jersey\u2019s gubernatorial matchup is making Martin nervous these days \u2014 and where he\u2019s headed this weekend.<\/p>\n

In a wide-ranging interview while he was in Pittsburgh, Martin spoke with Blue Light News to preview the party\u2019s prospects in New Jersey and Virginia, where Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger are trying to secure the governor\u2019s mansions, and discuss Democrats\u2019 efforts to defend House seats from Republican-led gerrymandering attempts.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Jersey is the best place, probably, for Donald Trump to actually stop the Democratic momentum \u2014 or at least minimize the Democratic momentum that we\u2019ve seen throughout this year,\u201d Martin said, pointing to what he cites as his party\u2019s overperformance in nearly four dozen special elections since Trump\u2019s inauguration. \u201cWe’ve overperformed on that to the tune of, on average, about 16 percentage points, which is a historic overperformance. And so, you know, they\u2019re looking to blunt our momentum somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite touting his party\u2019s performance under Trump\u2019s second presidency, Martin declined to handicap whether Sherrill needed to match or beat former Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 6-point margin in the New Jersey last November.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t care if we overperform or underperform,\u201d Martin said. \u201cWhat I care about is making sure we win. At the end of the day, we know that the Republicans are feeling very bullish about their chances in New Jersey for a whole host of reasons, right? Jack Ciattarelli lost to Phil Murphy by 3 points four years ago. In the Harris race last year, they significantly shrunk the presidential margin there. And New Jersey has a history of electing Republican governors, combined with the fact that they haven’t ever elected a Democrat to a third term, right, at least in the last 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Republicans are feeling bullish here due to Trump\u2019s inroads in the state last year \u2014 particularly in areas with large Black and Hispanic populations \u2014 and the increase in registered Republicans since Ciattarelli\u2019s 2021 bid for governor, when he lost by an unexpectedly small margin. Should Sherrill win \u2014 which some Democrats acknowledge will be challenging \u2014 the party will be reading the tea leaves to see how she performed in these areas where Democrats lost ground last year.<\/p>\n

Martin, though, said that if the election were held today, \u201ccertainly, I feel like both Mikie and Abigail would win handedly, but we’ve got three weeks left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin is also pushing for Democrats in some blue states to mount their own redistricting efforts to counter Republicans\u2019 aggressive push to redraw maps in red states across the country, led by Trump and Vice President JD Vance. But he acknowledged that his party\u2019s hands are tied in more ways than others.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery Democrat that I\u2019ve talked to, including our governors, they all understand how imperative it is that we stand up to this, again, unconstitutional power grab by the Republicans,\u201d Martin said. He insisted that Democrats \u201cbelieve in good government\u201d and are committed to \u201cfair and free elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe in putting, you know, safeguards in place to prevent exactly what we’re seeing around the country, and as a result, in many states, including in states like Illinois and other states that are controlled by Democrats, it’s much harder for them to actually do what the Republicans are doing in those Republican-controlled states,\u201d Martin said. \u201cSo I don’t begrudge anyone for not being able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the gubernatorial matchups in Virginia and New Jersey, the other major race that has garnered national attention is for attorney general in Virginia, where Democratic candidate Jay Jones has landed in hot water after his use of violent rhetoric in a text message was revealed. The incident has animated the gubernatorial race<\/u><\/a> and become a cudgel wielded by the White House<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Martin granted that Jones made \u201creckless and unacceptable\u201d comments and pointed out that he has apologized. But he didn\u2019t go out of his way to defend Jones.<\/p>\n

\u201cVirginia voters are the ones that will have to make this decision, and each race is their own,\u201d Martin said. \u201cVirginians will make a final decision on who they want to be their next attorney general.\u201d Still, Martin said he believes Jones will win.<\/p>\n

Like this content? Consider signing up for Blue Light News’s <\/i>Playbook newsletter<\/i><\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ken Martin has been almost everywhere since he became the chair of the Democratic National Committee, attempting to put out fires for a party in the wilderness as he has hopscotched some 33 states over the last eight months. Just this week, Martin quietly shuttled from Indianapolis, where Indiana Republicans are weighing mid-cycle redistricting at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}