One of the less-noticed stories in Trump’s first six weeks in office has been Ken Martin's rise to the chairmanship of the DNC, with  Walz very much driving the car.   Walz used all the influence he had to get Martin (and David Hogg, who’d come out early to endorse Walz) installed as chair. 

So – who is Ken Martin?  And why did Walz push him so hard?

Martin is the longtime chair of the Minnesota “Democratic Farmer-Labor” party – local parlance for “Democrats”.  In his 12 years running the MNDFL, Martin racked up an impressive record, extending the DFL’s victory streak in state offices – Governor, US Senate and the state’s constitutional offices – to 18 years. 

And before that, Martin spent years as the head of “Win Minnesota”, one of a large network of non-profits and PACs that, to put it indelicately, “launder” money from progressive plutocrats, public employee unions and progressive PACs to give to DFL campaigns.  Not to impugn the effort’s legality, but the system would’ve drawn a “not bad, Kenny” from Al Capone.    

So it was under Martin’s leadership, and floating on a current of money provided by the DFL money network that Martin helped engineer, that candidates like Ilhan Omar went to Congress, Tina Smith to the US Senate, Keith Ellison to the Minnesota Attorney General’s office, and of course Tim Walz – an undistinguished congressman from a rural district – became governor and, last year, a few million votes from being a heartbeat from the Presidency..  

In addition to lots and lots of money, Martin has a few other areas of expertise:

• He’s built the DFL’s turnout and legal vote harvesting operation into an efficient machine.   While Minnesota is a 50-50 state by any rational measure – with four DFL and four GOP congressional reps and a state House that is literally tied, and a Senate with a one vote DFL majority – Martin has primed the metro area voter turnout and legal (so far as we can legally see) ballot harvesting operation into one of the more effective vote-generators in the business, making the Senate, Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State and State Auditor jobs DFL sinecures since 2006.  
• He’s got access to a whole lot of cheap labor on the hoof.  Minnesota’s “non-profit/industrial complex” employs a huge force of paid staffers who are available to help with every aspect of outreach – door-knocking, fund-raising, events, phone-banking, and communications on any DFL pet issue.
• Martin is able to count on the most compliant, some might say subservient, media in the United States.  Most of the Twin Cities media serves as PR flaks for the DFL – one suspects because that’s the job they’re aiming for after they get laid off by their newspaper or TV station.

So – can Martin count on these factors in trying to run a national race?  

The national media is pretty trustworthy – but as we saw in the 2024 Presidential race, even the national Democrats couldn’t count on the media to be completely docile (and of course, sometimes Harris and Walz were just not ready for prime time).  

But the fundraising and machine-building?   

The Democrats nationwide have a very deep bench of non-profits, harnessing the energies of an awful lot of idealistic young “progressive” activists and marrying that up to an awful lot of PAC, union and billionaire money.  All it needs is a little direction.  

And Martin has a very solid track record at providing that kind of direction.

I wouldn’t sell Ken Martin too short.

Which means I wouldn’t sell Walz short, either.