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From NBC News: Progressive activist David Hogg said he won’t seek to continue as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee after the DNC called for a redo of the February election that elevated him to the post.
Shortly after the DNC announced it would hold new elections Thursday for two vice chair positions held by Hogg and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta as a result of a procedural challenge, Hogg announced he wouldn’t be a candidate.
The decision comes amid a public spat with the DNC and its chairman, Ken Martin, over Hogg’s decision to support primary challenges to Democratic incumbents, a spat that loomed over the vote even though it wasn’t directly related to the challenge that ultimately led the party to call for a new election.
Hogg made the announcement in a lengthy statement that criticized the Democratic Party for a lack of vision and a refusal to pass the torch to the next generation. But his discussion about the DNC and the vice chairmanship specifically was more muted.
In a series of rapid-fire posts on X Wednesday evening, Hogg took credit for many new radical progressives he helped get elected to office, and slammed Democrat leaders for their ‘lack of vision.’
He wrote:
I’m not running for the new DNC Vice Chair election:🧵
I started Leaders We Deserve for a simple purpose: to be the Emily’s List for progressive young Democrats.
We’ve sought to find the best of the best of our generation and do everything we can to help them run the best campaigns possible and get the financial support they need to win.
We spent millions last year fighting to elect incredible young people: Molly Cook, Mo Jenkins, Averie Bishop and Kristian Carranza in Texas; Bryce Berry and Ashwin Ramaswami in Georgia; Dante Pittman in North Carolina, Nadarius Clark in Virginia, Christine Cockley in Ohio, Sarah McBride in Delaware, Nate Douglas in FL, Oscar De Los Santos in Arizona and others.
We focused on open blue seats and defeating incumbent Republicans, hoping that these open seats would be space enough to achieve what we wanted.
After seeing a serious lack of vision from Democratic leaders, too many of them asleep at the wheel, and Democrats dying in office that have helped to hand Republicans an expanded majority, it became clear that Leaders We Deserve had to start primarying incumbents and directly challenging the culture of seniority politics that brought our party to this place to help get our party into fighting shape again.
We have a real challenge ahead of us. We lost voting share with almost every demographic across the board, and despite all that Trump has done, our approvals remain at 27%.
If we don’t show our country how we are dramatically changing and provide an alternative vision for the future as a party, we will continue to lose.
Not because we don’t have money, but because we don’t have a compelling vision for the future and we lack the courage we used to have to take on massive policy fights that have helped millions like the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, the first Assault Weapons ban and more.
Even if we had gained a three seat Congressional majority, the three deaths this session would have once again put millions of Americans on the line.
Let me be clear: this is not solely an issue of age, it’s an issue of effectiveness that at times is compounded by age. This is not a call for every older person to leave government.
There are lots of great older people who we need, there’s lots of terrible younger people we don’t. But it’s clear this culture of staying in power until you die or simply fail to do a good job but don’t need to worry about a challenge because you are in a safe seat has become an existential threat to the future of this party and nation that must be addressed.
This crisis of competence and complacency has already cost us an election and millions of Americans their rights. Let’s not let it cost us the country.
This culture simply will not change by only focusing on open seats or just throwing half a billion dollars into 30 competitive House seats. We must change the culture of our party that has brought us here and if there is anything activism or history teaches us it’s that comfortable people, especially comfortable people with power, do not change.
In this moment of crisis, comfort is not an option.
The American people are looking for an answer for how to revive the American Dream that they feel has become more of a fiction than a possibility. We have a crisis of faith in this country, in our elected leaders and in our parties. So far Donald Trump has convinced many people that the answer is to look backward instead of forward.
At this moment of darkness we have a sacred obligation not to this party, but to this country as a party, in his 1960 acceptance speech to the DNC to accept the democratic nomination to become president, John F. Kennedy said: “The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high–to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness; we are here to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.”
We relight that candle by providing a new vision for the future and leaders to bring us there. That new vision will come from new leaders. Building a future where voters vote for us not because of who we aren’t but because of who we are.
That is why it is important we not only defeat Republicans but we use a healthy competitive primary process to make us a stronger party. The alternative is a continuation of the politics that brought our party to this place. That is unacceptable. We must embrace a healthy culture of competitive primaries to build the strongest party possible.
Being a Democrat means believing in the politics of the possible like we did after Parkland. It’s about believing in who we could be not only as a party but as a country. If we put our minds to it and we work hard enough, we can do anything, no matter what stands in our way. That’s why I’m a Democrat.
I came into this role to play a positive role in creating the change our party needs. It is clear that there is a fundamental disagreement about the role of a Vice Chair — and it’s okay to have disagreements. What isn’t okay is allowing this to remain our focus when there is so much more we need to be focused on.
Ultimately, I have decided to not run in this upcoming election so the party can focus on what really matters. I need to do this work with Leaders We Deserve, and it is going to remain my number one mission to build the strongest party possible.
I’m thankful to everyone who has supported me in this role. I’m proud to have travelled to 10 states to do 30+ events, raising money for state parties, organizing with young Democrats, and getting out the vote for special elections in Wisconsin and Florida.
I have nothing but admiration and respect for my fellow officers. Even though we have disagreements, we all are here to build the strongest party possible.
Let me be extremely clear: Yes, we need to defeat Republicans. Leaders We Deserve will have many candidates challenging Republican incumbents.
But we also need to build a party not defined by not being the less bad of two options in voters’ eyes. We need to be the best option period at every level of government.
That change can only come through a full embrace of Democracy not only to defeat Republicans but to elect new Democrats to show voters how we are changing and regain their trust by listening to them, doing all we can to give them the best representation possible. Leaders We Deserve exists to do just that.
I started Leaders We Deserve for a simple purpose: to be the Emily’s List for progressive young Democrats.
— David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) June 12, 2025
David Hogg will not run for DNC post again after party orders redo of vice chair elections
@bkamisar https://t.co/xm1KUBCXT8
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) June 11, 2025
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