Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party leader Ken Martin is widely seen as having the most support of DNC members ahead of the Feb. 1 election. Still, he faces close competition from Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler.

Whoever wins the election will be tasked not only with digesting the lessons from the party’s failures during the 2024 election but also with reviving a Democratic Party that saw members of its big tent coalition drift toward the GOP.

Martin boasts the endorsements of 200 DNC members, nearly a majority of the 448 he will need to secure victory to become the next chairman.

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The support has given him an edge in the race despite coming from a state on the receiving end of blistering attacks from the GOP over its progressive lawmakers, such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and its handling of the 2020 riots in Minneapolis after George Floyd’s death. All of which may give the GOP fuel to attack Martin if he were to become the next chairman.

Wikler recently announced he has the support of 151 members, an increase of 20 votes in just 48 hours, and another candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, claimed he has the support of 65 members.

It will take 225 votes for a simple majority, which Martin is within striking distance of reaching on the first ballot.

But with roughly one week until Democrats elect a new chairman, Wikler’s campaign says the race is still open after accusing Martin of inflated DNC numbers and as Wikler garners more endorsements from at least nine Democratic governors who are urging their state parties to support him.

The two men appear similar on paper: They’re both Midwestern white men who reinvigorated their state Democratic parties and tend to eschew flame-throwing liberal antics, which the public showed less appetite for in the last election cycle.

“In my time at the Minnesota DFL, we have a track record of winning elections,” Martin said at the second DNC-hosted forum this month, touting his record winning statewide office. “I’m 25 and 0, and in order to do anything, to actually make a difference in people’s lives, you have to actually win. You have to build power.”

In Minnesota, Martin led Democrats to their first state trifecta in more than two decades during the 2013 and 2014 legislative sessions. In 2022, the DFL won another trifecta for the second time in 32 years when it won control of both legislative chambers.

The state party helped elect Mark Dayton for governor in 2010, the first time a DFL governor had secured victory after Rudy Perpich’s nonconsecutive second term began in 1983.

The DFL won a third consecutive term in the governor’s office after Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate last year, was elected in 2018. Walz’s reelection in 2022 marked the first time that either party has served for four consecutive terms in the governor’s office.

In a statement to the Washington Examiner, campaign adviser Justin Buoen cited Martin’s success despite a tough map for Democrats last year as proof Martin is the more qualified DNC leader.

“In November, Minnesota was the only state in the blue wall that delivered for Kamala Harris, and we won our Senate race and our competitive congressional district in double-digit landslides,” Buoen said. “Our 25-0 statewide victory record has helped make Minnesota a national model for how Democrats can deliver for working Americans. Minnesota Democrats have used their electoral success to take action on paid family leave, tax cuts for the middle class, and strengthen workers’ rights. Championing those kinds of policies is how we rebuild our coalition, and that’s what Ken will do as DNC chair.”

Under Wikler’s leadership, Wisconsin flipped blue in 2020 — helping secure then-candidate Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump — ended Republican control of the state Supreme Court in 2023, fundraised $200 million in five years, and implemented year-round campaigning in the state.

“I’ve built a record as the strongest fundraiser in this race. We’ve raised more in the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in 5 1/2 years than other candidates have raised in 14 years leading state parties or as heads of national committees,” Wikler said at the third DNC forum last Thursday evening. “We’ve raised more than any other Democratic state party in the country, and we’ve done that because we show what we’re going to do, and then we do it and we show our work.”

Additionally, Martin, at 51, and Wikler, at 43, would both represent a generational change from the 78-year-old Trump and the 82-year-old Biden.

However, allies of both men say there are crucial differences between them.

“I think there’s sort of two separate track records. One took over a perfectly blue state and made it pretty solidly blue,” said DNC member Bryan Kennedy, the mayor of Glendale, Wisconsin, subtly pushing back against Martin’s record.

“The other one took over a very red state that had been gerrymandered for essentially Republicans to always control the state … indefinitely, and developed a strategy to flip the Supreme Court, get new maps, and actually create a competitive environment,” Kennedy continued. “We’re much more purple because of the strategies that Ben put in place to win here.”

The DNC chairman race has mostly avoided nasty or bitter attacks, although the two men traded a few barbs over their biographical backgrounds during the second DNC forum.

The race has mostly seen them agree that the DNC needs to renegotiate consultant contracts, appeal to everyday issues of families, and make careful efforts to counter Trump’s leadership.

Wikler’s allies say his track record of taking a red-leaning state and making it more competitive for Democrats is what the party will need after Republicans routed it.

“We picked up 14 seats in the state legislature because we had built the infrastructure across the state, or Ben and the work he had done in the party had built the infrastructure across the state, to make that happen,” Kennedy added.

The centrist group Third Way cited Wikler’s ability to bring in voters in Wisconsin across the political spectrum as a key reason it endorsed his DNC chair bid.

“Ben, as the leader of the party in Wisconsin, has had to operate in a totally different environment,” said Kate deGruyter, senior director of communications of the group. “There is a requirement to really hustle for every vote to think about how we are connecting with the types of voters that, frankly, we are struggling with.”

Trump made significant inroads with working-class, minority, and young voters during the 2024 election, helping peel away a Democratic coalition that lifted Biden and Harris to the White House four years ago.

Yet, after losing the White House and the Senate and not taking the House last cycle, Democrats are plotting out several ways to win back voter trust in the economy and immigration, the two topics Trump seized upon during the campaign cycle, before the off-year elections in November, the 2026 midterm elections, and 2028 presidential elections.

“We are concerned that the party has been pushed too far to the extremes in ways that make us unpalatable to far too many voters in the places that we need to win, and frankly, where Democrats used to win,” deGruyter said, citing Wikler’s support of centrist Democrats.

New York state Sen. James Skoufis ended his long-shot bid for DNC chairman and quickly endorsed Martin for the role, claiming the Minnesota leader would shake up the party.

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“When I was in the race, we were the only two candidates who were reading the room and understanding that if we’re going to get back to winning as a national party, it’s going to require us to take on who I’m calling the status quo stakeholders within the Democratic Party,” Skoufis said.

“And at the DNC, that includes the consultant class that has been ripping off our party for many cycles now,” the New York lawmaker continued. “It’s going to require someone to go in and tell them, ‘No, we’re not doing it your way any longer.’”

Still, there are some Democrats who are concerned that neither Martin nor Wikler has the vision to counter GOP control of Washington and motivate Democrats deflated by Harris’s loss.

Faiz Shakir, a former campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson entered the race as progressive challengers to the more establishment-minded candidates.

But allies of the two front-runners dismissed their claims, citing Williamson’s poor performance as a 2024 candidate and Shakir’s late entrance in the race.

Ron Harris, a Minnesota DNC member, pointed to Martin’s success while leading disparate factions of the Democratic Party in the North Star State as a key indication that he could rebuild the party’s coalition.

“We have the highest percentage of uncommitted voters in the Democratic primary, 19%,” Ron Harris said. “And of the 19%, of the delegates that we sent to the convention, we sent like 10 or 11 uncommitted delegates.”

Both Biden and Kamala Harris faced progressives who voted “uncommitted” during the Democratic primary as a form of protest against the handling of the Israel-Hamas war, and it may have cost Kamala Harris votes in the election.

Still, Martin “was able to bring people together to make sure people were marching in the direction of supporting Kamala Harris even though there were deep divisions of policy and preference and feelings,” Ron Harris continued. “Under his leadership, [Martin] has been able to keep progressives together, labor together, different coalitions and communities of color together. And I think without the ability to build those coalitions, you don’t have a 25-0 record.”

Aside from helping candidates win reelection, the next chairman will also be in a prime position to lead the Democratic strategy to counter Trump’s legislative action.

Neither Martin nor Wikler has shied away from attacking Trump online or in candidate forums, but they both stressed that they are more focused on aiding families than on recharging a “resistance” effort, which supporters agree with.

“We’re going to be fine if we make sure we’re delivering on behalf of the people,” said Ron Harris, who cautioned against centering on Trump.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who is backing Wikler in the race, suggested that no matter who the next chairman is, it would be incumbent among all Democrats to help lead the charge in winning back elections.

“There’s no one person in charge any longer, so we all have to work together to try to change our message and change the things we stand for,” Murphy said. “So that we start winning back the voters we claim to represent, and that’s the poor and working-class voters in this country.”