Ken Martin seeks historic seventh term as DFL Party chair

As a young political operative, Ken Martin fixated on a singular goal: to return Minnesota Democrats to the governor's office.

Now the longest-serving chair of the Minnesota DFL in state history, Martin has led the party as its two-decade drought in the executive branch turned into a record string of victories. He wiped out party debt and transformed the DFL into a strategic and financial powerhouse in Minnesota elections, raising and spending more than $36 million on state and federal campaigns last fall.

While no candidates have announced, Martin expects a challenge as he seeks in Moorhead on Saturday a historic seventh two-year term as party chair, even with Democrats now in complete control of state government and rapidly advancing a progressive agenda at the Capitol.

"There's never been a period in the history of our party where we've seen more success," Martin said. "I always come back to: If it's not broken, what do you need to fix?"

Even Minnesota Republicans, who have cycled through four chairs during Martin's time leading the DFL, have a hard time disputing his track record.

"They've won a lot of elections and they aren't wasting time in enacting their goals at the Legislature," said David Sturrock, a political-science professor at Southwest Minnesota State University who has spent decades working with the state Republican Party. "That is the goal of elections, you get power and then you use it. Ken is clearly a major part of that."

But during his long tenure in Minnesota politics, Martin has also watched his party suffer major losses. It's made him a political pessimist.

"I'm not overly confident ever going into this work. We want to make sure that we run like we're 20 points behind, even if we're ahead," Martin said. "More importantly, when we come out of elections, to not learn the wrong lessons."

Martin came up in politics in a time when there were plenty of hard lessons to be learned by Minnesota Democrats.

He was a political operative working in the trenches for Democrats in 1998 when pro-wrestler Jesse Ventura "shocked the world" and won the governor's race. Republican Tim Pawlenty's 2002 win followed. Martin ran Attorney General Mike Hatch's DFL campaign for governor in 2006, which he lost to Pawlenty by less than 1% of the vote.

In 2010, Martin was involved behind the scenes in trying to harness the power of outside spending in the elections. He created an infrastructure of DFL-aligned outside groups that raised millions to pour into the governor's race.

After 20 years of being shut out of the executive branch, that strategy helped Democrat Mark Dayton narrowly defeat Republican Tom Emmer, despite a national Tea Party wave that swept Republicans into control of the Legislature.

But behind the scenes, the DFL Party was in disarray. It had blown all of its money against Dayton in the primary and couldn't help him in the general election. After he won, Dayton asked Martin to run for party chair.

He eventually agreed, not realizing that the DFL was more than $725,000 in debt. "I slumped over in my chair and thought about quitting," Martin said.

A dozen years later, Martin still occupies an office at the DFL Party headquarters on Plato Boulevard in St. Paul, a short drive from the Minnesota Capitol. Near a framed newspaper front page declaring DFL victories last fall, he keeps a plaque given to him by Dayton that says: "None of us is as smart as all of us."

Martin, sketching out a 10-year rebuilding plan, put the DFL at the center of both an ecosystem of political allies and of electoral strategy, and as a leader on direct-voter contact. They built offices around the state and a field operation that candidates could benefit from cycle after cycle.

"A candidate can give good speeches and do well at the debates, but if you can't engage a voter where they are, if nobody hears their neighbors say, 'Hey, you should check out this guy,' then you are sort of this voice in the wilderness," said St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who said Martin was the first person to encourage him to run for office.

The plan paid off: Democrats narrowly control the Legislature after the fall election and have held every statewide office in Minnesota since 2011.

Outside groups poured millions into elections, but the DFL Party still outraised and outspent every other group and candidate on the ballot last fall. It has $1.5 million on hand in its state and federal accounts. By comparison, the Minnesota Republican Party had less than $10,000 in its two accounts.

"It's hard for a party to be so relevant in the current political environment. There are lots of other forces out there with their own money doing their own thing," said Jeff Blodgett, a longtime DFL political consultant. Martin, he said, was able to "figure out how the party really thrives in that environment."

GOP Chair David Hann has criticized the DFL's spending as "hugely inefficient" compared with the result of the last election. "They have very narrow majorities that were won on very slim margins and yet they paid a huge amount of money to get those votes," Hann said.

Martin is already fretting about 2024.

Hiring quality staff is a problem, he said, and with Minnesota not likely a presidential target, the DFL will have to do more with fewer national resources coming in.

The work is rewarding but challenging: Party chairs tend to get all the blame, Dayton said.

"It's exhausting and demanding and never-ending," Dayton said. "Somehow, he seems to thrive in it."

Martin said he sees the payoff when he looks at what's already been signed into law this session, among them a bill to codify abortion rights and an aggressive new clean energy standard.

"That matters," he said. "It matters immensely for the things we care about."

Staff writer Jessie Van Berkel contributed to this report.