Ken Martin Beats Ben Wikler handily...

in the competition to lead the Democratic party.  Wikler had the support of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Shumer, monied interests, and UW law professor emeritus Ann Althouse (her son John Cohen was friends with him growing up in Madison, before Wikler headed off to Harvard, and Cohen to the University of Wisconsin -- Eau Claire campus.)

Martin is the son of a single mother and the first child in his family, he has said, to earn a college degree, graduating from the University of Kansas.

He is a Minneapolis native and a married father of two sons who speaks with a Minnesota accent and sometimes reaches for hockey clichés to talk about expanding the Democratic map. (“Skate where the puck will be, not where the puck is.”)

Much like Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the unsuccessful 2024 vice-presidential nominee, Mr. Martin has emphasized the need to connect with the working-class voters who have increasingly drifted from his party, sometimes invoking Trump-supporting relatives like his brother, a union carpenter, to describe the splintering coalition.

“I don’t rub elbows with billionaires or Hollywood elites, I rub elbows with working people in union halls, on picket lines, at civil rights marches and at protests,” Mr. Martin said at a recent candidate forum. “I’m running for chair because that’s what the next D.N.C. will look like when I’m the next chairman. That’s who we’re fighting for.” ...

“He has built power within the D.N.C. by building relationships with state party chairs,” said Senator Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat. “What that demonstrates is that he is going to trust people who are closest to the ground, closest to the voters, closest to the work.”

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said Mr. Martin’s focus on state parties showed his interest in competing everywhere.

“What he will do nationally is focus on keeping our blue states strong, but also making sure our purple states — which, of course, didn’t happen last time — go blue and the red states go purple,” she said. “That’s part of what he’s been doing with talking about building up these state parties and making sure we’re hitting every area.”