Of the entire Democrats who’ve introduced bids to chair the Democratic Nationwide Committee, New York state Sen. James Skoufis is perhaps essentially the most sudden.
Skoufis, 37, will not be precisely a family title with a standard DNC chair’s curriculum vitae. Amongst introduced candidates to guide Democrats’ central governing physique, he boasts neither the celebration administration expertise of Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Occasion of Wisconsin, or Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Occasion, nor the nationwide profile of Martin O’Malley, who ruled Maryland and ran for president earlier than turning into commissioner of the Social Safety Administration.
However Skoufis believes that his expertise profitable a fourth time period to a Hudson Valley state Senate seat in a district Donald Trump received handily makes him the most effective contender to guide Democrats again to energy.
“For 12 years, I have lived and breathed going out into communities, into meeting halls, and speaking to media outlets that are, let’s say, less than traditionally friendly to Democrats,” Skoufis informed HuffPost, referring to his first state Meeting win in 2012. “That’s the skillset that is most important here as we look to elect a new DNC chair.”
And at a time when many Democrats suppose it’s time for an excessive makeover, Skoufis is pitching his lack of a nationwide profile or expertise not as a legal responsibility however as an asset. He spoke to HuffPost by cellphone on Tuesday from a Vacation Inn in Scottsdale, Arizona, the place he was tenting out to introduce himself to state celebration chairs and different officers attending the Affiliation of State Democratic Committees’ winter assembly.
“As the outsider candidate, I’m the one that is best equipped to rebuild the DNC from the ground up,” Skoufis mentioned. “No more tinkering around the edges, no more reforming around the margins.”
Skoufis will get his likelihood to check that proposition on Feb. 1, when the DNC’s 448-person roster of consummate celebration insiders – state celebration chairs, veteran consultants, activists, and elected officers – determine who will succeed outgoing chair Jaime Harrison.
There could also be extra urge for food from Democrats this 12 months for a relative outsider – Skoufis is, in any case, nonetheless a seasoned politician – following the decisive victory by Trump, a businessman who held no public workplace earlier than first profitable the presidency in 2016. Skoufis’ candidacy calls to thoughts Pete Buttigieg’s DNC run in 2017. Then the unknown mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg dropped out shortly earlier than voting started within the chair’s race, however used the bid as a springboard for a presidential run that he parlayed into nationwide title recognition and a job as Biden’s transportation secretary.
Skoufis, in fact, insists he’s solely centered on the job in entrance of him. But when Skoufis succeeds, simply what sort of renovation does the New York lawmaker take into consideration for the DNC?
He needs a celebration that’s extra forthcoming, extra financially clear, extra open to constructive suggestions, extra receptive to constituencies who really feel overlooked of the Democratic tent and extra current on hostile or nontraditional media platforms.
“Because I will not owe anything to the consultant class in Washington or the cocktail circuit in Washington, one of the things I will do is I will let every single vendor contract expire.”
– New York state Sen. James Skoufis
“Because I will not owe anything to the consultant class in Washington or the cocktail circuit in Washington, one of the things I will do is I will let every single vendor contract expire,” Skoufis mentioned. “Many of these contracts are friends of a friend of a congressman. They’re getting seven, eight-figure contracts because they’re well connected with the DNC leadership. That ends on day 1.”
As soon as these contracts are re-bid, Skoufis would discover methods to “shift an enormous amount of resources” from the DNC to state and native events, labor teams and different companions working exterior of Washington.
Letting each vendor contract expire is perhaps simpler mentioned than carried out, particularly because the DNC prepares to assist Democrats to win aggressive gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia in November 2025. Skoufis is consulting an array of insiders and mentioned he plans to rent an skilled govt director to help him handle the celebration, an enormous group with which he has no expertise.
By the point I spoke to him, Skoufis had already mentioned that President Joe Biden’s choice to remain within the 2024 presidential race so long as he did harm Vice President Kamala Harris’s possibilities (one thing Skoufis didn’t say publicly previous to Biden’s withdrawal, however claims that he would have admitted, had he been requested to weigh in on-record).
He additionally thinks that South Carolina must be given an opportunity to go first within the 2028 presidential major, after holding the inaugural spot for the primary time on this 12 months’s non-competitive major. Such a transfer that might put the DNC on one more collision course with New Hampshire, the place being the primary major within the nation is enshrined in state regulation, and dismay many Democrats who wish to see a much less conservative state go first. Biden’s choice to have the DNC transfer the Palmetto State up on the first schedule was controversial; the DNC’s guidelines committee is about to take the matter up as soon as once more later this month.
When requested, Martin and O’Malley haven’t mentioned whether or not they help adjustments to the first schedule. Wikler’s marketing campaign informed HuffPost that it’s the chair’s job to make sure a good nominating course of with out placing a thumb on the dimensions earlier than the foundations committee and the broader DNC membership make their choice.
With out mentioning anybody by title, Skoufis has blasted rivals who haven’t mentioned whether or not Biden ought to have withdrawn earlier, or articulated a place on the first calendar.
“If you can’t answer those questions from traditionally friendly media outlets, you’re not going on Joe Rogan’s podcast. If you do, you’re getting eaten alive,” Skoufis mentioned. “We need a DNC chair who can answer questions. Obfuscating is obvious to voters.”
Skoufis is the son of a Greek immigrant and bought began in state politics shortly after graduating faculty. He has a light-weight however audible New Yorker accent and an unassuming demeanor — a mirrored image of each his birthplace in Flushing, Queens, and his upbringing in exurban-to-rural Orange County, simply north of the town’s suburban rings.
Skoufis is placing a optimistic spin on his electoral achievements: He defeated his Republican opponent by greater than 13 proportion factors in a state Senate district that his marketing campaign says went for Trump by 12 factors. (Detailed estimates are usually not but publicly obtainable, however Trump carried Orange County as a complete, which incorporates some areas not in Skoufis’ district, by eight factors.)
What Skoufis neglects to say is that his Republican opponent, Dorey Houle, was doubtless hindered by the vote-splitting presence of a Conservative Occasion candidate on the ticket, Timothy Mitts, who obtained almost 5% of the vote. Harris and Trump, in contrast, have been the one two candidates on the high of the ticket in New York. (In a follow-up change with HuffPost, Skoufis argued that he would even have picked up a few of Mitts’ voters, had Mitts not been on the poll.)
Regardless, the Democratic Occasion as a complete may stand to study one thing from the sheer breadth and variety of the coalition Skoufis has assembled, along with his combination of average and progressive stances and his deal with native relationships.
Skoufis has distinguished himself from extra progressive colleagues by opposing New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed tax improve to shut a public transportation funding hole, in addition to supporting her profitable effort to present judges larger discretion to set money bail amid a battle over bail reform. He’s pleased with securing the endorsements of the native firefighters union — whose mum or dad group declined to endorse a presidential candidate — and that of quite a lot of regulation enforcement unions that primarily backed Republicans.
On the similar time, Skoufis has managed to retain the help of the left-wing Working Households Occasion, together with that of key environmental, abortion rights and animal welfare teams, due to a progressive streak on a bunch of different points. He has, for instance, advocated for increased pay for house well being care staff and launched laws that might permit New York to import cheaper prescribed drugs from Canada.
Skoufis’ prescription for Democrats now will not be that they abandon their progressive positions on social and cultural points, however that they prioritize kitchen-table financial insurance policies which have broader public enchantment.
“We need to focus far more heavily on bread and butter, economic issues of affordability, working-class roots, talk about why we’re the party of unions.”
– New York state Sen. James Skoufis
“American voters know where we stand on abortion. The diminishing returns are complete, if we’re sending out the 700th glossy mailer in a battleground state on abortion,” Skoufis mentioned.“We need to focus far more heavily on bread-and-butter economic issues of affordability, working-class roots, talk about why we’re the party of unions. We do not emphasize those types of priorities nearly enough, and so there needs to be a reorientation on policy emphasis.”
Skoufis additionally needs to sign persistence and respect for individuals who have been alienated by a number of the celebration’s progressive positions on public security, immigration and transgender rights.
“We need to keep in mind, for example, that it was just 20 years ago that by a 60% to 40% margin the American electorate opposed marriage equality,” Skoufis continued. “We had to have an intense and public conversation with the American electorate to get them to the place where they are now, which is 70% support, 30% oppose. And we are the party that did that, because we engaged on the issue.”
Requested how he would deal with anti-trans rhetoric from Republicans, Skoufis mentioned he would go on offense, stating how the GOP has made the rights of a tiny minority group a problem. For example, he pointed to the Home GOP Convention’s mean-spirited response to the arrival of Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Congress’ first brazenly transgender member, which included a call to require everybody within the U.S. Capitol advanced to make use of loos typical of their assigned intercourse at beginning.
“In Congress, the incoming [GOP] majority – I didn’t hear one word for weeks about affordability, one word for weeks about having a government that makes us safer, and securing the border. All we heard about for the first couple of weeks after the election was talk about bathroom access,” he mentioned. “So we have to point out that it’s the Republican Party that is needlessly obsessed with this issue.”
As for allowing transgender women and girls to compete in girls’s sports activities, Skoufis mentioned, “Let school districts decide.”
Democracy In The Steadiness
Already contributed? Log in to cover these messages.
On the similar time, Skoufis mentioned he believes constituencies on the left, or that don’t match neatly into ideological containers, have additionally been uncared for by the Democratic Occasion. He would prioritize assembly with Arab People, progressives and faculty campus activists dissatisfied with the Biden administration’s choice to proceed arming Israel amid the nation’s devastating invasion of Gaza.
Requested whether or not he deliberate to endorse totally different insurance policies to mollify the latter teams, Skoufis mentioned solely that he would start by assembly with them.
“Let me answer that question with a question: When was the last time a DNC member, DNC chair, met with any of those stakeholders? When has a DNC chair ever given them the respect that they deserve, and have met with them? I’m willing to bet a lot of money, it’s probably never.”
