Four candidates have declared their intention to compete for chair of the Democratic National Committee, but as the race heats up, an aggressively polite, exceedingly Midwestern cold war has broken out between factions backing the two state party chairs in the race: Ben Wikler of Wisconsin and Ken Martin of Minnesota.
To a casual observer, Wikler may look like the frontrunner in this race. He has scooped up endorsements from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, MoveOn.org (where he worked before taking over WisDems), and the centrist Democratic organization Third Way, which extolled his virtues in a lengthy Politico op-ed . The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg declared in a recent column, “ If Anyone Can Save the Democrats, It’s Ben Wikler .” And just last week, Wikler stopped by The Daily Show , where his appearance was praised by Pod Save America host Jon Favreau. “I’ve rarely seen Jon Stewart so impressed with a political guest (though I can’t say I’m surprised he’s a Wikler fan — so many of us are),” Favreau posted on X.