In this file photo, DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin appears at a news conference at the state Capitol. Photo by Ricardo Lopez/Minnesota Reformer.
Minnesota Democratic elected officials — including U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith and U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Dean Phillips — quickly backed Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee after President Joe Biden announced Sunday he’s dropping out of the race. U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum had already endorsed Harris, urging her to name Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
But one lesser-known name may be just as important: Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin, an influential political operative both here and nationally, urged fellow Democrats to get behind Harris during a Sunday news conference.
“As we thank President Biden for his service and everything he’s done for our country, we must also look ahead to the existential stakes of this upcoming election. Our party must now rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris and emerge as a unified front ready to defeat Donald Trump and J.D. Vance,” Martin said.
Martin is the president of the Association of State Democratic Committees and a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. Minnesota’s state party is known as among the most effective in the nation.
Though Martin is not well known to average people, his quick endorsement sends a signal that Democratic politicos are quickly coalescing around Harris, which also telegraphs that elected officials elsewhere and national convention delegates aren’t far behind.
Martin is known for a few political maxims. Among them is that time is a campaign’s most valuable resource because it’s finite.
“Time is not on our side,” he said Sunday. Democrats must nominate a candidate and begin a highly abbreviated campaign barely more than 100 days long. That rapid schedule is unheard of in the modern political era, during which nominees have typically been unofficually decided months before their highly scripted TV show conventions.
Martin also loathes long, contentious, expensive primary battles. His remarks indicate he’s pushing delegates to avoid wasting the next few weeks by keeping the nomination in play, should other Democrats step forward to run for president.
“We have to move swiftly as a party to unite behind Vice President Harris,” he said.
Martin, ever the tactician, also noted the lack of political or legal complexity with a Harris candidacy because she can use the existing Biden infrastructure. “It’s almost seemless,” he said, noting the ease of ballot access and money transfers to the new campaign.
Martin also fielded questions about Walz, whom he said would be an excellent vice presidential candidate because of his ability to tell “the Minnesota story” about the high quality of life here.
Walz has assiduously worked in the past 18 months or so to raise his national profile, becoming chair of the Democratic Governors Association, and has already been mentioned as a vice presidential candidate in national political stories. He has the kind of profile — 24-year veteran of the National Guard, teacher and football coach, Midwestern governor — that would deliver valuable attribues to a ticket led by Harris, who is a California lawyer who’s been in Washington since 2016.
Minnesota is not a battleground state at the same level as Pennslyvania or Arizona, however. Both Pennslyvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly have been mentioned as potential VP candidates.
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