{"id":751460,"date":"2026-11-05T01:55:24","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T22:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/dnc-vice-chair-we-had-to-hit-the-bottom\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T01:55:24","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T22:55:24","slug":"dnc-vice-chair-we-had-to-hit-the-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/dnc-vice-chair-we-had-to-hit-the-bottom\/","title":{"rendered":"DNC Vice Chair: \u201cWe Had to Hit the Bottom\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tThe Democrats and their many supporters in Hollywood had a historic election Tuesday night, and it\u2019s leaving some of the people who orchestrated it both celebratory and trying to learn from the results.<\/p>\n

Jane Kleeb is one such person. A vice chair of the Democratic National Committee under Ken Martin who also heads up the Association of State Democratic Committees (which basically represents the Democratic party in each state and territory), she helped lead the movement that resulted in Tuesday\u2019s many wins.<\/p>\n

\n\tA native Nebraskan and longtime activist, Kleeb was in a giddy mood Wednesday, and also a pragmatic one. We got on the phone with her to break everything down.<\/p>\n

First I have to ask, how much of a surprise were some of these races? A few felt on the bubble coming in but others were just shockers. Does it feel that way to you?
<\/strong>
I definitely thought we were going to win the House and the Senate back because I knew the quality of candidates and the infrastructure we were building, and I thought we would win some governors\u2019 races and break some supermajorities at the state legislative level as well. But I didn\u2019t know it would be to this extent \u2014 that the margins would be so wide. In some of these races it wasn\u2019t one or two percentage points; it was five or six or more. So it was a resounding victory, not just voting against Trump.<\/p>\n

So you don\u2019t see a lot of these as \u201canti\u201d votes.<\/strong>

<\/strong>When I was watching some pundits [on cable news<\/a>] last night people were pontificating saying this was just a rebuke to Trump. And no question it was. But it was also because Democratic organizers everywhere and candidates who looked and sounded like their communities and were also fighters. So it was all of those factors.<\/p>\n

Of course, you\u2019ve tried to do that before. What changed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s because our candidates this cycle thought they had nothing to lose. That Donald Trump was such a threat to democracy that they were putting everything on the field and because of that it happ<\/a>ened all across the country not just in targeted battleground states.
<\/strong>
You say nothing to lose. In your mind did you need to hit rock bottom \u2014 did 2024\u2019s calamity enable this?
<\/strong>
There\u2019s no question we had a major reality-check as a party in 2024. And even in 2016. We felt like we recovered some footing in 2020 but not enough to carry us. We saw that with the divisions over keeping Biden as the nominee or switching candidates 100 days out in [2024]. And that\u2019s a picture of where we were as a party, that we couldn\u2019t find our voice, we couldn\u2019t find our footing. We couldn\u2019t figure out how to communicate to the American people all of the good things we were doing. So we hit the bottom. We had to hit the bottom. When Trump won again we saw with so many of the communities that we frankly took for granted \u2014 Black voters and young voters and Latino voters \u2014 they saw Trump as a change agent and someone who would break up the status quo. And obviously he didn\u2019t deliver on any of that, so we picked back up and said \u201cactually we\u2019re the party fighting for change to level the playing field.\u201d And voters received that message.<\/p>\n

That certainly happened across the Midwest and the South. But a lot of our readers are in California, where that didn\u2019t happen \u2014 it looks like the billionaire\u2019s tax is going to fail pretty badly. Why couldn\u2019t you make that case to Californians?
<\/strong>
If the tax fails it could be for a lot of reasons. Maybe it\u2019s that people don\u2019t like taxes, it could be that.<\/p>\n

Honestly the way it was laid out on the ballot was also confusing \u2014 you basically had a billionaire tax and a ban on a billionaire tax right next to each other, both just looking like a property tax.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it could also have been that. I definitely still believe people are deeply frustrated by the billionaire class and want to see accountability from billionaires. So maybe it\u2019s not a tax but maybe it\u2019s stopping giveaways at the federal level. There are other ways to get that accountability.<\/p>\n

One thing that struck me about the election is that unlike in past party sweeps \u2014 say, the Democrats in 2008 with Obama \u2014 there was no central charismatic figure around which all these House and Senate and local races coalesced. That you did it bottom-up instead of top-down.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThe difference this time was definitely the story of a team instead of a lead actor. And I think that\u2019s where the party shines. When rely on one person to carry us through we\u2019re going to lose that battle. That happened with President Obama during his terms. We lost 1,500 seats at the local level over his eight years because we weren\u2019t investing in state and local infrastructure; we got so wrapped up in \u201cObama.\u201d So I think we learned the hard lesson that it\u2019s this infrastructure model that works. And we saw that this time.<\/p>\n

What would you say was the biggest surprise last night?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Symone Sanders, who is from [here in] Nebraska had been talking about Mississippi. So I went down and visited. I thought \u2019this was a state where it could happen, but not this cycle.\u2019 But that was a mistake. We had Brandon Presley, [a moderate Democrat] who almost won [for governor in 2023]. But we didn\u2019t give the resources to get over the finish line. And to see what Scott [Colom] has done without those resources \u2014 if this happens [Colom is currently leading<\/a> his opponent Cindy Hyde-Smith by a few dozen votes with 44,000 ballots outstanding] it\u2019s from the sheer grit of Scott and the Democratic Party there and the candidates down-ballot.<\/p>\n

And the viral videos<\/a> were insane \u2014 he did that whole pick \u201canother protein\/pick another Senator\u201d bit to troll Hyde-Smith\u2019s line from a debate. I don\u2019t think I can remember a political ad as subtly effective and smile-inducing as that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He\u2019s been great. And it does make me feel like, damn, we should have known.<\/p>\n

You do have limited resources, though, and I wonder how you spread that out now that so many states seem to be in play, places like Kansas and Nebraska and Texas and South Carolina and maybe even Alaska<\/a>. It seemed a lot easier when certain red states were just automatically out of bounds. Does this indeed make where to spend your money more complicated?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is very clear from the amount of money raised this cycle is that we don\u2019t have limited resources. There\u2019s plenty of money in the political system. What you will hear from me and Chair Martin and many who live and work in our 57 states and territories is we can and should have permanent infrastructure everywhere, no exceptions, year-round.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t think there are simply some states too far gone to justify Democrats spending money in \u2014 that if, say, Florida couldn\u2019t elect a Democratic Senator or governor in this climate, maybe it\u2019s beyond hope for the party?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI think this is absolutely the wrong way to look at it. Colorado was red not that long ago, and then we began organizing and getting young people to vote. Georgia was red not that long ago and now look at it. [SZ: Both those states saw large influxes of Democrats from other states that Florida has not seen.]<\/em> I grew up in Florida and it was a swing state. We\u2019re starting to organize there. You have places like Colorado and Mississippi where there are cities that are blue and then you spread out to the suburbs and beyond making inroads there. Florida has that too. I think you\u2019ll begin to see things shift significantly in places like Florida and Nebraska [where the party came close to defeating a Republican this cycle with an independent Senate candidate] as we head into 2028.<\/p>\n

Speaking of looking ahead, now the Democrats have to govern. And they have to govern with moderates and progressives and far-left activists in the came caucus. We see here in Hollywood the rifts that can happen even among Democrats \u2014<\/strong> we see it, and I\u2019m kidding but not kidding, all too well unfortunately. How do you ensure those rifts don\u2019t happen in the next two years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think having progressives and moderates gives us an advantage because we\u2019ll have durable long-lasting policies that all kinds of Americans will embrace. Because the American people have all those different views too. People look at these disparities as a risk, but I see them as an advantage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Democrats and their many supporters in Hollywood had a historic election Tuesday night, and it\u2019s leaving some of the people who orchestrated it both celebratory and trying to learn from the results. Jane Kleeb is one such person. A vice chair of the Democratic National Committee under Ken Martin who also heads up the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":751461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/turekiowa.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[118657,70355,164001],"class_list":["post-751460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-democrat","tag-election","tag-midterms-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}