Source: Politics<\/p>\n
When Bernie Sanders\u2019 supporters took over the Nevada Democratic Party two years ago, progressives across the country were thrilled.<\/p>\n
Socialists had managed to bring down one of the most powerful establishment forces in the nation, the famed Democratic machine built by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. They saw it as a blueprint for the progressive transformation of state parties.<\/p>\n
Two years after the experiment began, there are regrets.<\/p>\n
Judith Whitmer, the insurgent party chair who wrested control of the party from mainstream Democrats, is facing a challenge in her reelection campaign next month amid doubts from her own former supporters and accusations that she abandoned her progressive principles. And even key figures in Bernie world \u2014 including Sanders himself \u2014 say they are unhappy and embittered by what\u2019s transpired.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe senator is pretty disappointed in Judith\u2019s chairmanship, specifically around her failure to build a strong grassroots movement in the state,\u201d said a person familiar with Sanders\u2019 thinking. \u201cA lot of us feel sad about what could have been. It was a big opportunity for Bernie-aligned folks in the state to prove some of the folks in the establishment wrong. And that hasn\u2019t happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
The situation has left the Sanders coalition in Nevada fragmented right at the onset of the critical 2024 election. And it has set off larger debates about what, exactly, the progressive movement should be doing during the twilight of the senator\u2019s career. There is even talk that it might simply be a waste of time for the progressives to win control of a state party\u2019s machinery.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere just has been a complete lack of competence or ability to accomplish anything significant,\u201d said Peter Koltak, a Democratic strategist and former Nevada senior adviser for Sanders\u2019 2020 campaign, of the current state party leadership. \u201cLook, there\u2019s a lot of well-meaning activists involved there, but they don\u2019t understand the ins and outs of how you build modern campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview, Whitmer expressed surprise over Sanders\u2019 disappointment, pointing to a meeting she had earlier this year with him: \u201cI think he would have said to me, \u2018Hey Judith, I\u2019m disappointed in what you\u2019re doing\u2019 if that was actually a true statement.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But even for the most optimistic-minded liberal in the state, the state of disarray among the progressive movement in Nevada represents a shocking turnaround from 2021.<\/p>\n
Back then, former Sanders aides, members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and other progressives united to elect Whitmer after working on Sanders\u2019 win in the Nevada presidential caucus a year earlier. Sanders was part of the effort, sending texts from his political committee to encourage people to run for party posts and later fundraised for the state party. At the time, Whitmer promised to make the state party \u201caccountable to the people,\u201d revamp its get-out-the-vote efforts, and leverage the national party to make Nevada the first-in-the-nation primary.<\/p>\n
The state party didn\u2019t take Whitmer\u2019s victory lightly. Shortly before it was sealed, party staff in an apparent act of protest moved hundreds of thousands of dollars from their own coffers to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and later quit their positions. Once Whitmer took her post, the Reid machine circumvented the state party and set up a coordinated campaign out of a local party in the state\u2019s second-biggest county. Officials insisted it was necessary because Whitmer lacked experience in winning battleground elections.<\/p>\n
said Whitmer. \u201cWhen we got the keys, there was a lot of reorganization that had to be done. Records were missing and money had been transferred out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitmer\u2019s critics \u2014 including those in the progressive wing \u2014 counter that any failures were largely hers. They accused her of having poor relationships with elected officials, of being a poor fundraiser, of failing to build the grassroots organizing infrastructure she promised, and of antagonizing leaders in the party.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve bashed her over the state party\u2019s decision to back a sheriff who appeared to support chokeholds as well as a lieutenant governor candidate, Debra March, who primaried the sitting Democratic lieutenant governor, who had been appointed by then-Gov. Steve Sisolak. They also accused her of trying to rig the March 4 election for state party chair by removing members from the state central committee, which chooses the chair.<\/p>\n
Nevada was the lone state where the incumbent governor \u2014 a Democrat \u2014 lost in 2022. Beyond Sisolak\u2019s defeat, Whitmer\u2019s critics note that Nevada did not get the No. 1 spot in the Democrats\u2019 new presidential nominating calendar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had to create a separate coordinated campaign, which I think created a lot of confusion for a few months. And it wasn\u2019t as united as it could have been,\u201d said Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, a Sanders-supporting Democrat who ran against Whitmer in 2021. \u201c[Sisolak] lost by a very small minority. If we could have gotten our voter registration or get-out-the-vote efforts sooner, he could have won.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s Democratic senators, House members and other statewide officials have endorsed Whitmer\u2019s opponent, Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, who is challenging her for the state chair post.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just establishment types who have gripes. Kara Hall, a leader in the Las Vegas chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, said Whitmer also hasn\u2019t kept up relationships on the left. \u201cShe never once after she was elected spoke out and talked to the chapter,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n
The Las Vegas DSA, which played a key role in helping elect Whitmer two years ago, announced in a scathing statement this month that it was not backing her reelection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is our lesson, and we hope socialists everywhere will pay close attention: the Democratic Party is a dead end,\u201d it read. \u201cIt is a \u2018party\u2019 in name only; truly, it is simply a tangled web of dark money and mega-donors, cynical consultants, and lapdog politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitmer defended her tenure to POLITICO, arguing that she was elected to make change and delivered, providing party infrastructure to rural areas, raising money through small-dollar donations, and holding legislative roundtable sessions. She also said the state party successfully ran a mailer program for federal candidates and made over 1 million direct voter contacts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe state party has never invested resources in rural communities,\u201d she said. \u201cWe actually provided resources and sent computer equipment and printers to each one of our rural county parties.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitmer also shot back at critics who said she is rigging the chair election, describing the removal of committee members who have not attended recent meetings as \u201cstandard practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the state party\u2019s backing of March for lieutenant governor, she said that initially took place at a time when the Sisolak team had told her that he would not make an appointment. (A source on the Sisolak campaign said the governor never publicly decided to not appoint someone.) Whitmer said the party supported Kevin McMahill, the sheriff candidate, as a way to \u201ckeep extremists out of office.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Whitmer sees it, the criticism she endured from her own progressive brethren was not because she abandoned principles but because she opted to work within political realities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey really did not want to do electoral politics,\u201d she said. \u201cThey wanted to work outside of the current electoral system. As the state party chair, I can’t do that. I can’t work outside of the system itself. I represent the Democratic Party. I don’t represent the DSA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hall, the DSA leader, disputed Whitmer\u2019s contention that the group was opposed to electoral politics, pointing out that the local chapter voted to make electoral research and recruitment a priority. But she said she now views the Democratic Party as a dead end not because of Whitmer or even the breakdown of their relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has more to do with how the establishment reacted\u201d to Whitmer\u2019s victory, she said. \u201cWe did it the right way. We took seats on the [state central committee]. We got elected. We voted. We out-organized them. And then they just set up shop somewhere else. What I think about it is they\u2019ll always do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the disappointment with Whitmer has left the future of the Nevada Democratic Party in a state of deep uncertainty, it has also sparked broader questions. For veterans of the Reid machine, those questions center on how to maneuver in the critical 2024 cycle without fracturing the party further. For Bernie followers, it\u2019s whether it\u2019s even worthwhile to take control of state parties at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is a lesson learned that that’s maybe not the best use of time,\u201d said a former Sanders staffer in Nevada, who added that the progressive movement in the state has now been set back. \u201cIt really feels like any efforts to elect progressive or left-wing candidates here is back to square one. Whereas when Judith was coming into this role, there really was a foundation that could have continued to be built upon.\u201d<\/p>\n