David Hogg, a gun control activist, co-founder of March for our Lives and a survivor of the Parkland school shooting, is running for vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, ABC News has learned.
“I think this role is a great way to bring, say, new voices into the Democratic Party,” Hogg told ABC News. “I want to be one of those voices to help represent young people and also, more than anything, to make sure that we’re dealing with the consulting class that the Democratic Party increasingly represents instead of the working class.”
The DNC offers four opportunities to serve as vice chair: three general vice chair roles and one vice chair for civic engagement and voter engagement. At 24, Hogg is considerably younger than the nominees for DNC chair, who stand out after Vice Chair Kamala. Harris presented himself as a “new generation of leadership” in his presidential bid.
Gun control activist David Hogg speaks at a press conference to launch the “Just Majority” Supreme Court Accountability Campaign in Copley Square on April 24, 2023 in Boston.
Scott Eisen/Getty Images, FILE
In the days leading up to the initial March for Our Lives, the student-run nonprofit March for Our Lives was formed to fight gun violence.
During his gap year before attending Harvard University, Hogg campaigned for many Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, and last year launched the progressive PAC Leaders We Deserve to elect young lawmakers. Hogg was also a supporter of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s bid for vice president.
Hogg believes that Democrats did a poor job of getting their message across in a way that really resonated with voters in the last election, among many other mistakes. He also wants to see the party take more direct responsibility, and says he thinks it is “unacceptable” to have raised the complacency of others in his party.
“We have to realize that we are more and more the party of the abyssal ones,” he said. “We’re surrounding ourselves with people telling us what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear, we’re increasingly surrounded by paid political consultants who don’t let what their donors tell them to guide their words. points.”
David Hogg speaks on stage at the Fast Company Innovation Festival 2024 at BMCC Tribeca PAC on September 17, 2024 in New York City.
Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images, FILE
Hogg suggested that an outside group report to the commission on obstacles to the electoral strategy. But he wants to be focused on solutions, and part of his argument is his ability to communicate in a unique way in the spaces where Democrats have struggled to turn the moment into a real vote: online.
More than half of young people under the age of 30 voted for President-elect Donald Trump in November, big increase from 2020 onwards. Hogg, himself a member of Generation Z, wants to meet these men where they are and Harris cites not doing Joe Rogan’s podcast before the election as a major missed opportunity.
While these young men pulled away from Harris by unexpected margins, Hogg says the Democrats’ losses in this election are bigger than just one voting block, and he hopes extreme candor and engagement with these groups will rebuild and expand the party.
“What really bothers me is that we tell people all the time, ‘Whose fault is this election?’ They are young people, the minority group X… but really, we are to blame. What the president should have heard, rather than what he wanted to hear, is that he should have left it.”
