March for Our Lives co-founder David Hogg announced he is running for Democratic National Committee vice chair on Monday in a bid to change the status quo within the party following its general election losses last month.
In an interview with The Hill, Hogg, 24, cited Democrats’ losing ground with young voters in November as a motivating factor to run for the leadership position within the party.
“Frankly, we need to focus on building up our young people in the party and not in a way that is patting us on the head and just taking our votes for granted, but really giving us power in the party,” Hogg said.
Hogg noted that he believed Democrats’ messaging to young voters played a role in the losses the party experienced last month.
“I think it’s a party we need to make sure that we’re communicating to voters more directly,” he said. “We need to tell them what Democrats are doing and tell it from whoever the next chair is,” he continued. “Talking directly to people and the vice chairs and make sure that we’re out there going on offense about the messaging around what we’re doing.”
While Vice President Kamala Harris won the majority of young voters last month, President-elect Trump made significant inroads with the group. Harris won the group by just six points, a quarter of the total support Biden had from them four years ago.
Hogg said he saw warning signs ahead of the election but his concerns were brushed aside by other Democrats.
“When I raised flags 15 months ago or so about concerns I had over young voters, I got texts from consultants within the party saying here you go saying this stupid stuff again, like you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Hogg went on to criticize the party’s messaging last cycle on other issues like the economy and crime.
“Our approach to talking to people when they come to us with serious problems that they’re facing, serious challenges that they’re facing with rising rent and other things like that, is not to address them directly but say ‘here’s a graph that tells you why you should or shouldn’t feel this way.”
Hogg is a Parkland school shooting survivor and became a prominent gun control activist following the shooting. In 2023, he founded the Leaders We Deserve PAC, which aimed to elect young, progressive candidates to state legislatures.
His announcement comes as Democrats look to new leadership and seek to push back on the incoming Trump administration and Republican majorities in the Senate and the House. The DNC is led by a chair, five vice chairs, a treasurer, a secretary, and a national finance chair.
Five candidates have launched bids for the chair role to replace outgoing chair Jaime Harrison. Hogg praised the field of candidates running for the chair role, but he said he was not supporting a candidate at the moment.
