David Hogg caused friction in his party when he threatened to back primary challenges against his fellow Democrats.
The Democratic National Committee will vote in June to decide if it will invalidate the vice-chair elections of activist David Hogg and Pennsylvania State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta on Feb. 1.
The upcoming vote is the result of a May 22 meeting of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, which voted 25–0 to move forward with a procedural challenge to those elections.
Hogg had drawn controversy by announcing in April that he would back primary challenges against incumbent Democrats whose leadership he felt was “ineffective.”
Hogg, during his short tenure as vice-chair, was threatening to hold primaries against “asleep at the wheel” members of his party through his Leaders We Deserve PAC.
DNC chair Ken Martin came out against Hogg’s plan, saying that a DNC officer should remain neutral in elections.
“Let me be unequivocal: No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election, whether on behalf of an incumbent or a challenger,” Martin said during an appearance on Fox News.
On May 10, Martin wrote on X that he would introduce rules requiring neutrality among DNC leadership regarding primary elections.
The Feb. 28 challenge came less than a month after Hogg’s election.
Members of the DNC will vote electronically on June 9–11 to invalidate or keep the election results.
If they vote to invalidate, they will hold do-over elections with the same five candidates.
The first election, which must appoint a man according to DNC rules, will be held June 12–15. The second, which may be any gender, will be held on June 15–17.
Hogg and Kenyatta were chosen as vice chairs of the party on Feb. 1 during its turbulent winter meeting, which was frequently interrupted by protests.
But that election was contested because it violated the DNC’s complex statutes requiring gender parity in elections.
There were two empty vice-chair slots, and statutes required that the first slot be filled by a man; the second could be any gender.
Instead of holding two separate elections, the DNC placed all five candidates on one ballot, put both slots on that ballot, and combined the results. Kenyatta received 289 votes, Hogg received 214.
Democratic Party’s Oklahoma representative and attorney Kalyn Free, who was also on the ballot, said that structure made it “mathematically impossible” for a woman to win.
