Democrats are voting in a new party leader but its not enough to right the ship

Saturday’s election of a new Democratic National Committee chair is attracting a lot of media attention in the wake of the drubbing the party received in 2024.A fresh start under a new leader could help turn the floundering Democrats’ fortunes around, insiders fervently hope.But that’s not likely, whoever wins the battle — be it Wisconsin state chair Ben Wikler, Minnesota state chair Ken Martin or one of their long-shot rivals — because the party’s problems are ideological, not technical.The DNC, like its Republican counterpart, sounds more important than it is.It does not select candidates for office, establish the party’s platform or set legislative priorities at any level of government.The national committee isn’t even the leading campaign-fundraising entity in presidential, federal or state races.While the DNC raised an impressive $652 million during the 2024 campaign cycle, the Kamala Harris campaign alone raised over $1 billion.The race for DNC chair could matter if the party’s woes were purely a matter of campaign mechanics: The central party helps to maintain voter-contact databases and provides technological infrastructure that all its candidates can access.If the Democrats’ November defeats were due to poorly maintained databases or outdated voter modeling software, the new chair could fix those and propel the party to victory.That, however, is clearly not the case: Democrats are losing because of their message, not their tactics or techniques.Consider these facts:And the Democrats’ woes have only deepened since last November.

President Trump started his second term with a positive net job-approval rating, something he was never able to achieve in his first term.The Democrats’ long-term decline in voter registration has continued, too.Registered Republicans now outnumber Democrats in Nevada for the first time since 2007, and the GOP is also continuing to out-register Democrats in key states such as Pennsylvania and North Carolina....