Biden's former campaign manager declares DNC Chair Ken Martin beyond rescue as party fractures deepen

Rufus Gifford, a former deputy campaign manager to Joe Biden and onetime DNC finance director under Barack Obama, says there is "no saving" Chairman Ken Martin's leadership, a verdict backed by the party's own fundraising numbers, an HR complaint, and a growing roster of Democrats willing to say so publicly.

Gifford published a Substack article laying out the case against Martin in blunt terms, writing that the chairman "is a good man with good intentions but simply not meeting this critical moment." The critique did not come from a Republican operative or a cable-news pundit. It came from a man who spent years raising money for the Democratic Party at its highest levels, and who says Martin never once picked up the phone during the 2024 campaign cycle to ask for help.

The timing compounds the damage. Gifford's broadside landed the same week the New York Times reported that Martin faces a formal human resources complaint after allegedly throwing his phone at a junior aide's desk. Federal Election Commission records paint an even grimmer picture: the DNC ended June with $16.3 million in cash and $18.5 million in debt. The Republican National Committee, by contrast, reported $128.5 million in cash and zero debt.

That gap is not a rounding error. It is a structural collapse.

Gifford's indictment centers on broken relationships, not just broken budgets

Gifford's critique goes beyond the balance sheet. He pointed to the fundraising culture that existed under prior DNC leadership, naming Jim Messina and Jen O'Malley Dillon, two senior Democratic operatives who worked closely with the committee during the Obama and Biden eras, as examples of leaders who understood that raising money requires trust built over years of personal outreach.

Gifford wrote in his Substack post:

"The number of times Jim Messina or Jen O'Malley Dillon called me to help try and figure out how to fund special projects like these are in the dozens. And we were successful because of the relationships we had collectively built and the trust we had accumulated over the years."

Martin, Gifford argued, never made those calls. During Gifford's entire stint with the Biden campaign in 2024, he says Martin never contacted him. The result, in Gifford's telling, is a chairman who cannot deliver when the party needs money most.

He warned that the fall will bring "literally hundreds of asks for money", and that under Martin, those requests "could not be met with a 'yes' at this point." Gifford called that outcome "a failure" and added that Democrats "have been seeing this coming for a year now."

The internal fractures extend well beyond fundraising. Democratic socialist primary victories have already threatened established party leadership in Congress, and Martin's inability to unify the committee only accelerates the splintering.

Staff leaks signal a chairman who has lost the building

Perhaps the most damaging line in Gifford's article was his assessment of what the steady stream of negative stories means about Martin's standing inside the DNC itself. "The leaks coming from inside the building streaming across every media outlet say to me that the (diligent and wonderful) staff are losing or have lost faith," Gifford wrote.

That assessment aligns with reporting from multiple outlets. The Associated Press reported that Democratic operatives have begun informal discussions about recruiting a new DNC chair to replace Martin, with major donors withholding funds and party insiders describing him as increasingly paranoid. Amanda Litman, who leads the Democratic group Run For Something, told the AP: "I think it's a really hard job, and also Ken is not doing it very well. I honestly think he's going to have a hard time rebuilding trust."

The phone-throwing incident reported by the New York Times added a behavioral dimension to the leadership questions. Martin allegedly threw his phone at a junior aide's desk, prompting a formal HR complaint. That episode fits a pattern described across several reports of erratic conduct under pressure.

Martin is not the only Democrat struggling to maintain composure under scrutiny. A New Jersey Democratic candidate recently walked away from a reporter's question rather than answer it, a small moment that reflects a broader party unable to face uncomfortable questions about its own direction.

Martin's defense rests on a fundraising claim his own numbers undercut

A DNC official, responding to Fox News Digital, pointed to a Substack article Martin published last week in which the chairman claimed the DNC "has raised the most money of any DNC without the White House in the party's history." Martin wrote: "If the question is whether the Democratic Party will be ready to win, everywhere, at every level, in this election and for the decade ahead, the answer is a resounding yes."

The FEC filings tell a different story. A committee that ends a reporting period $2.2 million deeper in debt than its cash on hand is not in a position to fund the hundreds of fall campaign requests Gifford described. The Just The News outlet reported that the DNC used its Capitol Hill headquarters as collateral for a $15 million loan, a detail that was not disclosed in FEC filings. Rep. Sam Liccardo, a California Democrat, went further than Gifford, stating flatly: "Ken Martin must resign. As Democrats, we have become too captured by failing strategies."

Former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, who was removed from his position after pledging $20 million to primary what he called "ineffective" Democratic incumbents, offered his own verdict. "Democrats shouldn't have someone leading the DNC who can't raise money," Hogg said. "Let alone someone who throws stuff at staff and can't raise money."

Hogg's ouster itself deepened the fractures. The Washington Free Beacon reported that two major labor leaders, AFT president Randi Weingarten and AFSCME president Lee Saunders, resigned from their DNC posts in protest of the party's direction. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel captured the dysfunction in a single line: "The DNC has spent six months on a firing squad in the circle, and can't even fire a shot out."

Leaked audio caught Martin questioning his own resolve

The chairman's troubles are compounded by his own words. The Washington Examiner reported that Martin was caught on leaked audio expressing doubt about whether he wanted to continue in the role. "For the first time in my 100 days on this job... The other night I said to myself for the first time, I don't know if I want to do this anymore," Martin said.

One anonymous House Democrat responded to that audio with a straightforward assessment: "If he really doesn't feel like he's up for it, then better for him to know that now... if he is not confident in his abilities to do the job, then step aside, and let somebody else lead."

Martin has also refused to release an internal "after-action report" on the party's 2024 election losses, despite promising to do so on his first day as chairman. That broken promise feeds the perception, now shared by donors, operatives, labor leaders, and at least one sitting congressman, that Martin is more interested in managing bad headlines than in fixing the problems that created them.

The pattern of internal Democratic dysfunction shows no sign of slowing. Intraparty finger-pointing has become routine, with prominent Democrats publicly blaming each other for damaging leaks and strategic failures rather than presenting a unified front.

A new Quinnipiac poll found Democrats in Congress carrying a 70 percent disapproval rating, a number that suggests the party's problems run far deeper than any single chairman. But the chairman is supposed to be the person who organizes the response, raises the money, and rallies the troops. By every available measure, Martin has failed at all three.

Gifford called for action, not patience

Gifford closed his Substack article with a call that stopped short of naming a successor but left no ambiguity about his conclusion. "As Democrats, the only solution is to acknowledge the problem and fix it. Now," he wrote. "We need to lean on each other, call each other for help, acknowledge the anger and the disappointment people feel while respecting and bringing together the voices both new and old."

The DNC's vendor relationships tell their own story. Vendors have reportedly been asked to delay submitting bills until after November because the committee cannot pay them now. A party that cannot pay its own bills is not a party ready to fund competitive races in a midterm cycle.

When the chairman himself doubts he wants the job, the staff leaks to every reporter who will listen, the labor unions walk out, the donors close their checkbooks, and a former finance director publicly declares the chairmanship beyond saving, the question is no longer whether the DNC has a leadership problem. The question is how long Democrats will pretend otherwise.

A party $18.5 million in debt, sitting across the table from an opponent with $128.5 million and no debt, does not need a pep talk on Substack. It needs accountability, the kind Democrats are always happy to demand from everyone except themselves.