The DNC needs a tech and media leader, not just another politician
If the next chair of the Democratic National Committee has one job, it’s to win back the presidency in 2028. Realistically, however, they must wear many hats: energetic spokesperson for the party, prolific fundraiser, skilled tactician, and herder of cats to ensure a smooth presidential primary process.
Coming out of a disastrous loss in 2024, Democrats would ignore at their peril an oft-forgotten part of the role: leader of one of the most important technology and digital media organizations in politics.
Mere months after John Kerry’s crushing defeat at the hands of George W. Bush in 2004, the DNC stood without a leader to rebuild the party. In February 2005, DNC members elected Howard Dean, a firebrand primary contender who elicited an incredible amount of energy and support from Democrats around the country. Dean ran on a 50-state strategy — a revolutionary concept at the time, but also on the idea of bringing innovations from his campaign into the party.
The Dean campaign was where the early-aughts internet met politics: blogs, fundraising thermometers and, of course, the scream. Judged by the only metric that matters, Dean was a smashing success, with Barack Obama winning the White House with the most online campaign in history, which adopted and adapted many of the most inventive Dean tactics.
Nearly two decades later, the challenges facing the Democratic Party are different in kind, but the urgent need for innovation remains the same. We are back in the position of needing to fundamentally revamp our playbook if we want to win again.
Technology is one area where Democrats need to right the ship and think outside the box for a new era of campaigns. Although there has been progress since 2016, there are serious concerns about the fragility and sustainability of some of the DNC’s top vendors, as Politico reported last year. And while artificial intelligence did not yield the kind of deep-fake armageddon that many had predicted, given the pace of development for frontier models, it’s safe to assume AI will weigh heavily over the 2026 and 2028 election cycles.
A more timely area for Democratic investment and creativity, however, is the media space. Just as the 2004 election took place during a moment of dramatic change in how people consume information, so did 2024, with increasing distrust in traditional media and a shift toward creators, podcasts and other forms of independent media, especially among members of Gen Z.
There are fair critiques one can make about the Harris campaign’s approach to innovation — they turned down an interview with Joe Rogan, never hired a chief technology officer — but there was only so much to do in a 107-day campaign. The real roots of this failure stem from years of failing to innovate and an attachment to the status quo of the Democratic machine. Especially on digital media, the party has utterly failed to invest in new media properties and build relationships with a generation of creators who narrated the campaign to so many voters.
So what could a tech-inspired DNC chair actually do? A lot.
The DNC can serve as the vanguard for a brand new, tech-powered organizing program that's able to reach voters year-round and at scale. Even though Democrats had more volunteers and knocked on more doors than Republicans this cycle, we still lost. Our field program is clearly broken.
The DNC must accept this reality and take the lead in reimagining what it looks like to organize voters in the modern era, leveraging new technology at every turn and deploying volunteers who have deep relationships within their communities, not by dumping untold millions into cold door knocking alone. Technology cannot replace humans in having real conversations about the issues that matter most, but it can help to scale the power of volunteers. Going forward, cutting-edge tech is going to be essential not only in contacting voters but, more importantly, in listening to them. The DNC can shape this new future.
On the media front, the party has historically leaned heavily into legacy platforms and outlets, promoting positive stories in local and national press. But traditional media is no longer sufficient to win. The DNC must embrace direct communication with Americans via social media and engage with creators, especially niche creators dedicated to cultural topics people care about, such as gaming, fashion, sports, even anime. These are increasingly the spaces where people consume political information — especially young people and those who seem to have abandoned Kamala Harris in droves.
This much-needed shift in media strategy starts with the party chair, where a key qualification should be someone who can authentically communicate with voters in emerging mediums and who will encourage other party leaders to do the same (Bernie Sanders might not be a gamer, for example, but he did a great job streaming on Twitch with @pokiemanelol). Put simply, the new chair should be willing to go speak wherever voters are listening, period.
Finally, the Democratic Party is not a top-down organization, and so the new chair cannot snap their fingers and remake it. But that’s why we need a chair and a DNC that will demonstrate the power of these approaches and be direct about where we are failing, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Just like Democrats learned their lesson in the aftermath of our 2004 loss, we have an opportunity today to find our way back and build a party that is better, stronger, more resilient and ready to win in 2028 and beyond.
Josh Hendler is a technologist who led engineering and technology at the DNC under multiple DNC chairs.