The DNC Is Building a Democratic Party That Can Win the Moment and Win the Future

By Ken Martin, Democratic National Committee Chair

The DNC has a clear job: win elections so we have the chance to improve people’s lives. With Donald Trump dismantling both our economy and our democracy, that job is more important than ever.

Judged on that metric, our candidates’ results have been historic, with victories or overperformances in 90 percent of key races since Trump was elected. And at the DNC, we are raising and deploying the resources necessary to continue that trend and take back Congress.

If the question is whether the Democratic Party will be ready to win — everywhere, at every level, in this election and for the decade ahead — the answer is a resounding yes.

Why? Because we are replacing a boom-and-bust campaign model with permanent political infrastructure. We are not choosing between winning now and building for the future. The investments we are making are designed to do both: win big this November and build a stronger party for the elections that follow.

Context Matters

The current DNC has raised the most money of any DNC without the White House in the 198-year history of the Democratic Party.

Through June 2026, this DNC reported total receipts of more than $207 million. During the comparable 18-month period of the last Trump-era cycle, when Democrats were also out of the White House and rebuilding toward a midterm election, the DNC reported $109 million. That means the current DNC has reported total receipts of nearly $100 million more - roughly 90 percent more - than the most relevant historical comparison.

The DNC raised, from grassroots donors (under $10,000) and major gift donors (over $10,000), $154.8 million through June 2026, compared with $95.2 million over the comparable 18-month period in 2017–2018. That is a nearly $60 million advantage—approximately 63% more.

The monthly fundraising pace tells the same story. The current DNC is averaging about $8.6 million per month, compared with about $5.3 million per month during the comparable period. That is roughly $3.3 million more each month, or about 62% higher.

This growth is not confined to one part of the fundraising program. The advantage is broad-based. Major-donor fundraising is ahead by approximately $8.6 million, or about 30%, while grassroots fundraising is ahead by approximately $51.0 million, or about 77%.

And our grassroots energy is driving the advantage. The current DNC has already raised $117.3 million from grassroots donors, surpassing the $101.3 million raised from grassroots across the entire 2017–2018 cycle — with six months still remaining in 2026.

And we have done exceptionally better with high-net worth donors. In the comparable period, the current DNC secured contributions of $100,000 or more from 67 donors, compared with 40 donors in the 2017–2018 cycle. That is 27 additional six-figure donors — about 68% more.

The DNC did not have to choose between grassroots support and major-donor support — it increased both.We are building a more durable fundraising model. This is not a one-month spike, and it is not a big-donor-only story. The major-donor program is stronger than it was in 2017–2018, but the largest driver of the advantage is grassroots fundraising. That is the broad-based, sustainable model a national party needs.

The advantage is visible in total dollars, monthly averages, grassroots contributions, major contributions, six-figure donor participation, and consistency across the full comparison period. Any claim that the current DNC is experiencing historically weak fundraising must account for the fact that it is nearly 63% ahead of the last directly comparable Trump-era period.

Fundraising performance should also be judged against comparable political conditions — and this DNC is raising substantially more, at a faster pace, from a broader donor base than the DNC did in the comparable 2017–2018 period. The numbers show a party organization with both strong grassroots energy and stronger high-dollar participation.

This is the strongest out-of-power fundraising performance in DNC history.

Cash on Hand Is Not a Strategy on Its Own

There is a story being told about the Democratic National Committee that is simply wrong.

According to that story, the DNC is not raising money and its financial position is evidence that the party is failing. The people repeating these claims often point to a single number (cash on hand) and treat what is a snapshot in time as the definitive measure of the strength of a national political party.

Without understanding how much money an organization is raising, what responsibilities it has, and what it is investing in, that snapshot tells a deeply misleading story.

So why does the DNC have less cash on hand than some expect? Because we made a conscious decision to invest money in the work required to win in 2025, 2026 and beyond. We are converting the cash we raise into electoral assets: more people, earlier organizing, better technology, and stronger state parties.

That answer may be unsatisfying to people who believe the purpose of a political party is to accumulate the largest possible bank balance until the final days before an election. But a party is not a savings account. Its purpose is to build power.

For too long, Democratic strategy has been dominated by a boom-and-bust political model. We raise money, build temporary campaign operations late in the cycle, hire short-term organizers, run last-minute advertisements, hold an election, and then dismantle much of the infrastructure we just created.

Skilled staff scatter. Field offices close. Local relationships atrophy. Voters may not hear from the party again until the next election, when we return to ask for their votes. Then, every two or four years, we spend enormous sums rebuilding what we allowed to disappear.

That is not fiscal discipline, it is strategic waste. And it’s doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.

This outdated model driven by the consultant-class assumes that voters begin paying attention only in the final weeks before an election and that the biggest investments should come at the tail end of a campaign, especially in television advertising and other paid communications. That theory may have reflected an earlier media environment. It does not reflect the world in which voters live and consume information today.

Political information is now constant. Voters encounter messages through social media, creators, podcasts, local news, group chats, streaming platforms, community organizations, workplaces, churches, schools, and friends. And Republicans do not wait until September of an election year to define Democrats. They do it every single day.

A party that goes quiet for more than 700 days between elections allows its opponents to shape public opinion uncontested. A party that appears only when it needs votes reinforces the belief that politics is transactional and that voters are merely names on a turnout list.

That approach is particularly damaging at a time when the Democratic Party faces a serious trust deficit. Trust cannot be purchased in the closing weeks of an election. It must be earned through presence, listening, consistency, constant organizing, and relationships.

I followed an “always on” approach to organizing for 14 years as chair of the Minnesota DFL. We did not lose a statewide election. And now, the DNC is making a different choice from the old, status quo. We are organizing early. We are organizing always. And we are organizing everywhere.

The upshot is we are spending early to build the capacity Democrats need to win. And it’s working.

Our Theory of the Case

Here’s what we believe.

First, building power is now a permanent contest. We must communicate and organize year-round — because our opponents do.

Second, the Democratic Party must offer an affirmative economic agenda centered on affordability, opportunity, freedom, and the needs of working families. Opposition to Donald Trump and Republican extremism is necessary, but opposition alone is not enough.

Third, relationships are more powerful than transactions. We will not repair the Democratic brand by speaking to voters only when we need their ballots. Trust cannot be bought in October; it must be earned all year.

Fourth, there are no permanently red or permanently blue places. Political geography changes, and Democrats win when parties invest, recruit candidates, develop local leaders, and compete across the map.

Fifth, the national party must think beyond a single candidate or cycle. We must win the elections immediately in front of us in 2026 to put a stop to Donald Trump’s damage while building the capacity to win in 2028, 2030, 2032, and beyond. Election Day is not the finish line. A real political party sees it as one milestone in a much larger effort.

Sixth, the party must coordinate across committees, campaigns, state parties, labor, allied organizations, and community leaders so that resources are not duplicated and critical work does not fall through the cracks.

Finally, we must measure success by power built, not simply dollars retained. The old model hoarded cash and rented infrastructure. We are investing early and building infrastructure Democrats can own.

What We Are Building

We put these principles into practice by building infrastructure that lasts. The DNC is investing in a 57-state-and-territory strategy designed to strengthen Democratic parties throughout the country—not only in the handful of states that happen to be presidential battlegrounds once every four years.

Every state party now receives substantial monthly support from the DNC. State parties are using these investments to hire organizing directors, communications professionals, and voter protection staff. They are building partisan voter registration programs, constituency outreach operations, volunteer systems, and year-round capacity.

What we are building is the foundation campaigns rely on when an election becomes competitive. We cannot claim to be a national party while starving the operations that organize Democrats in our states.

The DNC is also helping build Democratic infrastructure at the county level. Hundreds of counties currently have no functioning local Democratic organization. Where Democrats are absent, Republicans have an open field to recruit candidates, communicate their values, identify supporters, and shape the political identity of the community.

We are working to change that, not by parachuting in a few weeks before an election, but by developing local leadership and institutions rooted in the communities they serve.

And we are investing in partisan voter registration because the party cannot build a durable majority without actively expanding its base.

For years, Democrats outsourced voter registration to outside organizations. Many of those organizations perform valuable civic work, but legal restrictions can prevent nonpartisan groups from talking to new registrants about Democratic candidates, Democratic values, or why joining the Democratic Party matters. Democrats face a serious partisan-registration disadvantage in critical states.

The DNC’s When We Count initiative is the start of our efforts to reverse that trend. It hires, trains and deploys fellows to register new Democratic voters and build relationships with them from registration through Election Day. The goal is not simply to add a name to a file. It is to welcome a person into a political community. Communicating with a voter from registration through Election Day and beyond. Building relationships with voters in an authentic way. A party that is not intentionally expanding its base is managing its decline.

The DNC will take the lessons from the 2026 When We Count program and expand them at scale through 2028 to help win back the White House.

We are also investing in listening to voters instead of just talking at them. Our Local Listeners program is a deep-canvassing program focused on Democrats in targeted congressional races who voted in 2020 but sat out in 2024. Rather than beginning with a script that tells those voters what to believe, the program begins with a conversation.

What concerns them?

Why did they stay home?

Where did the party lose their trust?

What would make them believe Democrats understand their lives?

Thousands of volunteers have joined the program, including many taking their first political action since 2024. These conversations give the party something no television advertisement can provide: candid feedback from people in key congressional districts whose support we must earn back. We cannot rebuild trust with voters unless we are willing to hear why we lost it.

We are investing in a year-round distributed organizing operation capable of supporting races at every level of the ballot. Over the past year, that operation has attempted millions of targeted voter contacts and supported statewide elections, congressional races, legislative special elections, mayoral contests, and redistricting fights. Republicans campaign 365 days a year. Democrats cannot operate on a seasonal schedule.

The DNC is supporting races that some dismiss as too small, too local, or too difficult. But school boards, county commissions, city councils, state legislatures, judicial races, and mayoral offices are where governing majorities and future leaders are built.

Since the beginning of 2025, Democrats have flipped 30 state legislative seats while Republicans have flipped none. We have helped win contests in places that had not elected Democrats in decades. Those victories did not happen because we waited for the map to become favorable. They happened because Democrats competed.

We are investing in the data and technology used by the entire Democratic ecosystem. Candidates from school board to president rely on the voter file, organizing tools, and technological infrastructure supported by the DNC. Maintaining that system requires tens of millions of dollars per cycle, and we provide it to Democrats nationwide running at all levels.

The committee is also modernizing organizing technology, piloting new tools for volunteer management, voter contact, real-time data collection, analytics, and campus registration.

These are not glamorous investments. They may not produce a splashy headline. But they can make nearly every Democratic campaign more effective. The technology supporting thousands of Democratic campaigns does not appear as cash on hand; it appears as campaigns being able to find, understand, and reach voters.

We are investing in voter protection and litigation because winning a majority means little if voters are prevented from casting ballots or having those ballots counted. The DNC is standing up critical voter protection programs to support election administration, voter education, legislative monitoring, early-vote operations, Election Day programs, and legal challenges to voter suppression.

We are investing in people. A permanent campaign cannot be powered by a disposable workforce. The party must recruit, train, retain, and promote talented organizers, campaign managers, communications staff, data professionals, and political leaders.

Programs we’re leading such as BlueMatch, training boot camps, leadership projects, and the Democratic Training Hub are designed to create a stronger talent pipeline to staff critical targeted campaigns and state parties.

And we are investing in a modern communications operation capable of competing in a fragmented information environment. The DNC is building relationships with political and nonpolitical creators, strengthening our rapid response operation, combating misinformation, reaching voters through nontraditional platforms, and giving Democratic communicators the facts they need to make an affirmative case. We cannot communicate through a 1990s media strategy in a 2026 information environment.

The Wrong Scorecard

Some discussion of the DNC’s financial position overlooks the distinct and complementary responsibilities of the party’s national committees.

The DCCC, DSCC, candidate committees, and the DNC each perform essential work, but their missions and spending patterns are different. Congressional campaign committees and candidate committees must focus intensely on winning specific races, often preserving substantial resources for late-cycle advertising and other decisive expenditures in competitive contests.

The DNC’s role is broader. It must build and strengthen the campaign infrastructure that supports the entire party: state parties, organizing capacity, voter files, technology, voter protection, voter registration, communications, training, coordinated campaigns, and our candidate campaigns.

For that reason, cash on hand is only one measure of organizational strength. It is also important to consider what each committee is responsible for building, when its resources must be deployed, and how its investments contribute to Democratic campaigns across the country.

The key questions for evaluating the strength of the DNC are:

How much money is the DNC raising?

Is it developing a broad and durable donor base?

Is it investing those resources in programs connected to a coherent strategy for building a stronger national party?

Are those investments producing stronger political organizations, more voter contact, better candidate recruitment, larger teams of trained staff and volunteers, improved technology, greater voter protection, and election victories?

By those measures, the DNC is carrying out its distinct responsibility to strengthen the party’s long-term capacity and change how Democrats organize and compete nationwide.

A Durable Organizing Model

There is a reason this strategy makes some Washington insiders uncomfortable. A model centered on late-cycle spending concentrates decision-making in the hands of the few. It channels enormous sums through a small universe of consultants, media buyers, and vendors. It treats state and local parties primarily as delivery systems for national strategy. It rewards short-term activity that is easy to quantify, invoice, and display.

A durable DNC organizing model redistributes power.

It gives the DNC and state parties greater capacity. It develops local leaders. It invests in organizers rather than treating them as temporary labor. It listens to voters instead of assuming Washington professionals already know what voters think. It supports races that may not attract national attention. It measures success not only by the next election, but by whether the party is stronger five or ten years from now.

This is not an argument against paid media, polling, or late-cycle spending. Those tools have an important place in modern campaigns. It is an argument against allowing them to become the entire strategy.

A 30-second TV advertisement aired in October cannot compensate for years of political absence.

A last-minute mail program cannot rebuild trust with a community that believes it has been ignored.

A presidential campaign cannot create, in a matter of months, the local organizations, voter-registration advantage, trained political workforce, data systems, and volunteer leadership that a strong national party should have built and maintained all along.

The old model asks: How much can we save for the final weeks? Our model asks: What must we build now so that Democrats are stronger every week between now and Election Day - and stronger still after Election Day?

Winning the Moment and the Future

The DNC is raising historic sums because Democrats across the country understand the stakes of this moment. We are putting those resources to work now because the cost of waiting is greater than the political comfort of a larger bank balance.

A larger bank account does not knock on a door, register a voter, recruit a candidate, or protect the vote.

We have chosen to build. We are replacing a boom-and-bust campaign model with permanent political infrastructure. We are not choosing between winning now and building for the future. Our investments are designed to do both.

That is how we win in November. That is how we become a check on Republican corruption, chaos, and rising costs. And that is how we build a Democratic Party capable of winning the moment and the future.