The Democratic National Committee‘s possible removal of Vice Chairman David Hogg has ignited an internal firestorm, splitting party members over what some say is a sham attempt to quash a young leader.
Members of the DNC credentials committee passed a resolution on Monday evening challenging the Feb. 1 election of Hogg and another vice chairman, Malcolm Kenyatta.
The resolution was brought forth by Kalyn Free, who unsuccessfully sought one of the three vice chair positions earlier this year. It passed the committee with 13 in favor, two against, and three abstentions.
The full body of the DNC will vote on the resolution either at an August meeting or earlier if another meeting is scheduled. If the DNC approves the vote, then Hogg, Kenyatta, Free, Jeanna Repass, and Shasti Conrad are all eligible to run again for the two remaining vice chair positions.
Some Democrats alleged that the procedural maneuver to hold a new election is being used to force out Hogg, who has angered many Democrats after announcing he would spend $20 million on Democratic primaries to elect younger politicians through his group Leaders We Deserve.
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“It looks bad,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told the Washington Examiner. “It looks like they’re trying to silence, you know, go through the back door just to silence a critic. So I’m opposed to this latest maneuver.”
One House Democrat, granted anonymity to speak freely about leadership, told the Washington Examiner that pushing out Hogg, 25, from leadership is not a good look for the party.
“The purging of — coming up with an excuse to get rid of a couple of people who kind of rock the boat, I don’t think that that’s a good thing [and] conversation for us to be having right now,” the lawmaker said.
However, a DNC member, granted anonymity to speak freely about his support of ousting Hogg, slammed the vice chairman’s $20 million effort to back primary challenges as a “self-serving political grift.”
“Just the idea that he’s using his position to organize primaries against Democrats when we’ve got to keep our focus on winning back the House, it’s the height of a self-serving hustle,” the member said.
Hogg defended himself in a lengthy post Monday evening, claiming he is hoping to remake the party after a bruising November election that saw many key constituents move away from Democrats.
“Today, the DNC took its first steps to remove me from my position as Vice Chair At-Large,” Hogg said in a statement. “While this vote was based on how the DNC conducted its officers’ elections, which I had nothing to do with, it is also impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party which loomed large over this vote.”
But Hogg’s defense has not placated his fellow vice chairman, who is also at risk of running again for reelection.
Kenyatta said he was “frustrated” and claimed the drama over a new election was not about Hogg, “even though he clearly wants it to be.”
In a separate Instagram post, Kenyatta turned to expletives to express his anger.
Hogg’s behavior “rubs me the wrong way,” Kenyatta said. “Not just because I got way more votes than him, and I also am finding myself in this position of having to go through another election, which was hard and grueling on my team and on my family.”
The Democratic Party is still struggling to find the best path forward to win back voters who chose President Donald Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris. Younger Democrats are increasingly running against older Democrats who have been in office for decades, claiming the party needs a new generation of leaders, with the internal debate often spilling over into the public arena.
“I’ve done the hard and unglamorous work of trying to build this party and rebuild this party in a moment where we really need to f***ing change what we’re doing in the way that we’re approaching voters,” said the 34-year-old Kenyatta. “And yet we’ve spent now weeks talking about one person, not about what the party needs to do, but talking about one person.”
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) posted similar sentiments that Hogg’s battle with the DNC is a “distraction.”
“The @DNC will prove itself to be irrelevant as a political organization if they punish duly elected leaders like @davidhogg111 because they disagree with him,” Pocan wrote on X. “I hope they put more thought into any decision. We need to be fighting the reconciliation bill. This is a distraction.”
One House Democrat told the Washington Examiner that it’s fine for political leaders to challenge incumbents, but the member questioned the timing of Hogg’s plan as “suspect.”
“If he had been elected four years ago or three years ago to be a vice chair, and circumstances have changed, and he decided to do this, that would even be one thing,” the lawmaker said. “But to do it in such quick succession, it’s hard to believe that he didn’t know that he was going to pursue an anti-incumbent primary strategy while he was running for DNC Vice Chair.”
“He should have been open and upfront about that,” the lawmaker added.
However, the lawmaker also added that kicking Hogg out as the vice chairman because of his primary planning is not a good look for the party.
“It only would feed a narrative that is unhelpful to the DNC and unhelpful to the party in this moment,” the lawmaker said.
Free’s challenge alleging that the vice chair elections did not follow proper procedure was brought forth on Feb. 28, before Hogg announced the $20 million investment in mid-April. But the optics of the resolution have landed the party in a political bind.
DNC leaders have attempted to take a more neutral tone on the fallout from Free’s challenge and tamp down attacks against Hogg.
Christine Pelosi, a member of the credentials committee and daughter of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), explained that after Artie Blanco was elected as the first vice chairwoman in February, the next vice chair needed to be a man due to gender parity rules, and the third could be of any gender.
“The DNC Members voted for those last two spots on a combined ballot,” Pelosi wrote on X. “After the election, one of the Vice Chair candidates, Kalyn Free, raised a challenge that combining those last two ballots violated the rules of procedure for the vote.”
As a member of @thedemocrats Credentials Committee, I think tvis is a fair summary want to break down our decision today on the DNC Vice Chair elections back in February. A
on what comes next
https://t.co/rxpXMmTzP2
— Christine Pelosi (@sfpelosi) May 13, 2025
DNC Chairman Ken Martin also struck a measured response in a statement released after the resolution passed.
“I am disappointed to learn that before I became Chair, there was a procedural error in the February Vice Chair elections,” Martin said. “The Credentials Committee has issued their recommendation, and I trust that the DNC Members will carefully review the Committee’s resolution and resolve this matter fairly. I thank all of our officers for their service, including Vice Chairs Kenyatta and Hogg, and look forward to continuing to work with them in their officer posts as this matter is resolved.”
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Martin previously claimed that DNC leaders should not meddle in primary races and pushed for a neutrality pledge that will likely be taken up during the August meeting. Hogg has not agreed to the pledge, but if it is adopted, that would likely be another maneuver to remove him from office, which Democrats appeared to accept more than holding new elections.
“I believe Martin’s initial proposal is the correct one. Hogg should make a choice,” Bannon said. “He wants to continue this project, he should resign. But I don’t like this backdoor way of trying to bump him out of his job.”
“I think they’re doing too much,” said Sharonda Huffman, a former 2024 DNC delegate and Baltimore County council candidate in Maryland, of the neutrality pledge. “They’re trying to make a point for everybody, for one person. And I think that might be too much.”
“Personally, I welcome David Hogg to be part of the Democratic Party. I think his voice is needed. I think his experience is needed,” Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist with experience working on presidential campaigns, told the Washington Examiner.
But Ceraso also claimed that if Hogg doesn’t feel accepted within the DNC, then he should consider “building out your own entity and infrastructure, and let the DNC operate, and arguably, find a replacement for you of someone who wants to be there.”
At least one DNC member said they hadn’t received any guidance from the DNC on when they’d vote on whether to redo the vice chair elections. Current DNC laws don’t allow the organization to easily oust Hogg if he doesn’t willingly step down, but the DNC member mentioned that even without the technicality, the DNC could always change the bylaws to boot Hogg in August.
Hogg has repeatedly thumbed his nose at Democrats who he claims are too enamored by seniority and tradition as opposed to the urgent fight against Trump.
“Our country is in crisis, and too many leaders in the Democratic Party are asleep at the wheel,” he said in his Monday evening statement. “I ran to be DNC Vice Chair to help make the Democratic Party better, not to defend an indefensible status quo that has caused voters in almost every demographic group to move away from us.”
Huffman, the former DNC delegate, was not opposed to Democratic incumbents facing challengers.
“It’s nothing wrong with competition,” she said. “People are dying in office. Of course, natural causes happen, but we are not allowing a new generation of leaders to come. Sometimes we are ineffective and we’re not facing a reality that some people need to just step down. I believe in term limits.”
Congressional leaders have mostly deferred to the DNC to handle the vice chair elections, with some declining to comment when asked by the Washington Examiner or dodging the question.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) did not go into the drama of possibly removing Hogg from his DNC position during a Tuesday press conference when asked, yet he did offer some insight on where he stands.
“I think I’ve been very clear about my perspective on David Hogg, and I’m going to defend every single member of the United States House of Representatives in the Democratic caucus,” Jeffries said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered few words on the Hogg crisis: “Up to the DNC.”
But ultimately, several Democrats are pushing the party to refocus on pushing back against the Trump administration and move away from the Hogg drama. “At some point, folks need to stop having main character energy,” Ceraso said.
Ramsey Touchberry and Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.
