The Tale Of Harrison's Ford

The good news is that current DNC chair Tom Perez isn't going to bother to run for a second term after the complete disaster Dems had in the House and Senate in 2020. The bad news is that the obvious replacement, Stacey Abrams, is running for Georgia Governor in 2022. I'd much rather see Abrams running the DNC, but that's not my choice to make. The worse news is that means the odds-on favorite to run the DNC after Perez is a guy who set fundraising records and all that money meant that he still lost to Lindsey Graham by ten points.

First, Joe Biden has to pick his Cabinet and his White House staff. But after that, there’s only one name on leading Democrats’ list for Democratic National Committee chair: Jaime Harrison, who lost a race for U.S. Senate in South Carolina last week.

If he’s named as chair, Harrison will inherit an organization in significantly better shape than it was when Tom Perez took over in 2017. Under Perez, the DNC has paid off its debt, rebuilt its infrastructure, and boosted employee morale. No one, though, expects that keeping Democrats organized will be easy, especially without a common political enemy in Donald Trump. The next chair will help decide the party’s messaging ahead of the 2022 midterms and play a big role in the fight over which states will hold the first presidential primaries in 2024.

Harrison became nationally known this year during his run against Senator Lindsey Graham, as he set fundraising records and became a cause for Democrats far beyond his state. Graham ultimately won by a much-wider-than-expected 10-point margin, boosted by South Carolina’s partisan lean and his role in confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. But the goodwill that Harrison built up and the coming vacancy at the top of the DNC—Perez confirmed to me yesterday that he won’t be running for another term—has many Democrats thinking that Harrison is a perfect fit for the role. “The timing just seems right, frankly,” said Trav Robertson, a friend of Harrison’s who is now in Harrison’s old role as South Carolina Democratic Party chair.

More than just timing is involved. Harrison has the support of James Clyburn, his mentor and former boss, who is the House Democratic whip and whose endorsement during the primary campaign helped power Biden to the nomination. Yesterday, Clyburn pointed out to me that he had supported Harrison when he ran for DNC chair in 2017, and said, “I think he’s better prepared than he was when I supported him the first time.”

Clyburn told me he hasn’t mentioned the DNC-chair race to Biden, but “all of Biden’s friends know what I feel about it.” A Biden spokesperson declined to comment.

Clyburn’s support, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb said, “means the train has left the station.” Kleeb, who’s from a very different part of the party—she’s the political-committee chair of the Bernie Sanders–aligned group Our Revolution—told me she’s happy to see that support go to Harrison. Like several others I spoke with, she pointed to Harrison’s record as a state-party chair as giving her confidence in the kind of leader he would be. She’s just hoping that as the party elects other officers, members will promote regional and ideological diversity. Kleeb, for example, told me she’s planning to run for vice chair of the DNC herself.

Via text message, Harrison declined to comment, though earlier this week he told The Washington Post that he’d take a “good look” at running if asked.

 

This is one of those things that I'd feel a lot better about if Harrison being in charge of Dem messaging didn't already directly result in a double-digit loss to one of the biggest enablers Trump had in his regime.

But Abrams is doing what Abrams needs to do, and that's go after Brian Kemp. And frankly, Harrison can't do much worse than Tom Perez or -- God help us -- Debbie Wasserman Schultz.