Here are seven Democratic state party chairs you need to know in 2024
By Lucy Ritzmann
When it comes to politics and the mechanisms that make our democracy tick, most people are only familiar with the elected officials and candidates that are perpetually splashed across their screens. But when election day is over or the crisis has passed, there are party officials and political strategists who are working in a more behind-the-scenes role all year round.
It is these people, arguably, who really hold the fate of this nation in their hands. And I don’t say that ominously or to imply that there is a shadowy ring of superpowers hidden in the shadow of the Capitol building. These are simply the people, like directors in a Broadway show or the author of the latest New York Times bestseller, who are easy to find but relatively less well-known than what – or who – they’ve created.
This is all to say: party leadership is really, really important. As an example, take Steve Daines, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee which is in charge of all Senate Republican candidates, who allegedly – and presumably disparagingly – said in May that abortion access was particularly important to single women. Now, everyone knows that the man in charge of all the GOP candidates this year appears to be a raging and deeply insensitive sexist. So this doubles as a good example of the importance of leadership and a good example of exactly how not to do these jobs.
Fortunately, most party chairs don’t put their foot in their mouths quite so badly most of the time. And, in 2024, the leaders that we need to be paying especially close attention to are the Democratic state party chairs.
Why? Because if Donald Trump attempts to destroy the electoral process by attacking the votes in several key states like he did in 2020 and seems quite ready to do so again in 2024, the Democratic state party chairs are people who can stop him.
Not to put too much pressure on these chairs and their teams… but the fate and future of our democracy could literally rest on how they are now preparing for November and the actions they take when all hell inevitably breaks loose.
And while all Democratic state party chairs will have an important role to play, these seven chairs, by virtue of the fact that they lead a Democratic party in a very swingy state, will have a particularly crucial role to play.
Ben Wikler (WI)
Ben Wikler was elected as Chair of the Wisconsin Democrats (or WisDems) in 2019 and has built his party into a “winning machine” and is no stranger to acting quickly to protect democracy in his state. Wikler has also built a strong national presence: he is a master of the X/Twitter explainer thread.
Wikler and the WisDems will face one of their hardest tests this year: Trump has been campaigning hard in the state and continuing to spread his dangerous rhetoric that the results of the 2020 election were false and that he actually won Wisconsin. (Trump lost to Biden by about 20,000 votes.) Paired with the RNC convention which will take place in Milwaukee this summer, the concerns that Trump allies will use loopholes in election law, and the fact that Wisconsin could very well determine who wins the presidency this year, Ben Wikler certainly has a big task ahead of him.
Anderson Clayton (NC)
Anderson Clayton made headlines in 2023 when she became the youngest state party chair in the nation at 25 years old. Born in 1998, she is, of course, also the first Gen Z-er in the role, although she’s made clear that she will not be pigeon-holed and her priority is to reach out to voters of all ages.
And this mission will be absolutely crucial in 2024. North Carolina has changed tremendously in recent years and is no longer the ruby-red state that it once was – and Clayton is determined to ensure that people recognize that and invest in her state. To combat the Trumpian forces at play, Clayton has prioritized the inclusion of young and rural voters, who have often been ignored or left behind in the past.
Nikema Williams (GA)
The Peach State seems to do things a little differently than the rest of the country: the Georgia Democrats are an affiliate of the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of Georgia, and the state party chair is actually Congresswoman Nikema Williams (GA-05). Williams is also the first Black woman to be the Democratic party chair in Georgia.
Williams is also no stranger to electoral chaos: she was elected in 2019 and shortly after, Nikema and the Georgia Dems played a key role in the 2020 Georgia run-off elections that sent Sens. Ossoff and Warnock to the Senate, securing an extremely Democratic majority (or, really, a tie + VP Harris’s vote). Williams also led the GA Dems through Rev. Warnock’s subsequent run-off re-election in 2022. Essentially, we can expect some wild times in Georgia again this year due to its historically problematic run-off law – but fortunately, Chair Williams is a pro at this point.
Sharif Street (PA)
Similarly to Georgia, the Pennsylvania state Democratic party is also an elected official in the Keystone State: State Senator Sharif Street, aside from having an extremely alliterative and fun title, serves Pennsylvania’s 3rd Senate District and has also served as the state’s Democratic Party Chair since 2022. Street became the Chair by uniting a coalition of rural and urban Democratic voters who felt left behind.
2024 will be Street’s first full cycle in this role and he certainly has a big role to play. It seems that Pennsylvania may be the swingiest of states this year, where any victory will be won by a very small margin – and thus especially vulnerable to election denialism.
Nikki Fried (FL)
Nikki Fried, an attorney and former (and first ever female) FL Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, is the Chair of the Florida State Democratic Party – she actually assumed the role in 2023 after ending a bid to be Florida’s governor in 2022.
This will be Fried’s first electoral cycle in this role – and it’s a bit of a doozy. Florida is home to some very active extremist Republicans, including failed presidential candidate and current governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Rick Scott, who is facing a challenge this year from Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. The Sunshine State is also, of course, home to Donald Trump these days and his Mar-A-Lago resort. Fortunately, this is a playing field that Fried seems pretty accustomed to when she was elected as a Commissioner in 2019, she was the only state-wide elected Democrat in the entire state.
Yolanda Bejarano (AZ)
Yolanda Bejarano was elected to serve as Chair of the Arizona State Democrats in 2023, after a long career as a union organizer with deep ties to grassroots movements and groups in the state. Bejarano has made it clear that in 2024, she is taking on Trump and his “puppets” and all of their anti-constitutional efforts.
This is something that Bejarano will certainly have a lot of opportunity to do – and a lot at stake. Arizona has recently freed itself from an 1864 near-total abortion ban that was imposed on them by the activist AZ Supreme Court at the urging of MAGAist of Senate hopeful Kari Lake and Donald Trump. And, despite some flip-flopping, it’s clear that Trump allies are planning to go after Nevada this year.
Lavora Barnes (MI)
In 2018, Lavora Barnes, an Obama alum and longtime political operative, became the first Black person and the first woman elected as the Michigan State Democratic Party Chair in the state’s history. Barnes’s emphasis seems to have been on building up a year-round organizing model for the Democrats – a very useful strategy to be more inclusive to all voters in a state, especially given the fact that election cycles don’t really seem to begin or end anymore.
These organizing efforts will be especially important for Barnes and the Michigan Democrats as the margin of victory in the Wolverine State will likely be very small and Trump has been making significant efforts campaigning there. Barnes certainly has a lot on her hands: as the Detroit Free Press recently put it, “The presidential candidates can’t seem to stay out of Michigan.”
