Faiz Shakir, a longtime Democratic political operative who managed Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, is jumping into the race for chair of the Democratic National Committee just a few weeks before the vote.
Shakir said in an interview that the Democratic Party leadership needs to refocus on broader issues confronting the party, as opposed to the details of how the DNC itself would be run.
“We are debating how clean to keep the kitchen while the Titanic is going down,” Shakir said of why he’s throwing his name into the race. “The Democratic brand is the issue, and we’re spending time worrying about, oh, the consultant contract and whether this state party has enough funding here or there.”
DNC members are set to vote for a new chair on Feb. 1 as the party takes its first steps toward rebuilding after having lost the presidential election. Current chair Jaime Harrison said after Vice President Kamala Harris' defeat to Donald Trump that he would not seek a second term running the party organization.
In the aftermath, a handful of candidates have jumped in, led by a pair of Midwestern state party chairs: Minnesota's Ken Martin and Wisconsin's Ben Wikler. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is also running alongside a handful of other candidates, but Martin and Wikler have attracted the most attention.
Now, though, Shakir has joined the competition with 17 days to go, he confirmed to NBC News. The New York Times first reported his entry into the race.
Shakir suggested while there is a place for social media posting and high-level forums among Democratic leadership, the party needs to focus on personal interactions.
“In a society right now where people feel increasingly alone and isolated, you know, often on digital media, can we be one of those organizations that fills in the gaps to become a place of gathering in person, to build community with one another, to make us human again?" he said.
Those olive branches, Shakir suggested, should include sending pizza to striking union workers and having Super Bowl watch parties with beer as ways to ingratiate folks with the Democratic Party.
“When you stick your head out and say, hey, I’m going to do something that you didn’t expect me to do, they will notice,” he said. “It just requires, you know, challenging the way you conventionally might think about what the DNC does.”
Shakir poured cold water on the idea that he would run for DNC chair in November on “The Chuck ToddCast.”
"I do not think I could actually wage a campaign and win," Shakir said then. "I don’t think anybody wants me to be the DNC chair."
Shakir walked those comments back Wednesday.
“I had some assumptions of people who I thought might run, who decided not to,” he said.
Shakir has held a number of roles across the Democratic Party over decades. Since he managed the second presidential campaign of Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, he has directed the nonprofit More Perfect Union, which describes itself as an advocacy journalism outlet. Previously, Shakir was the political director at the American Civil Liberties Union and an aide to former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and former House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
