Illinois Democrats in Congress are, for the most part, feeling meh about the possibility of Rahm Emanuel leading the Democratic National Committee.
It’s not even official whether Emanuel, who is currently the U.S. ambassador to Japan, is running for chair of the DNC. But some Democrats from his home state aren’t sure he’s the right choice.
“I would hope that we can find somebody that can make a better connection to working people,” Rep. Nikki Budzinski said, adding that she wasn’t against Emanuel.
The DNC election will be held early next year. Martin O’Malley, former governor of Maryland, and Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, have launched official bids for the job. The race is an early test of where the Democratic Party wants to go after a bruising 2024 election when they lost both chambers of Congress and the White House.
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NOTUS was unable to reach Emanuel for comment. But Axios reported last week that Emanuel was considering the run. It’s not yet final whether current Chair Jaime Harrison will run for reelection, although he has long maintained that he won’t.
Among the members of Illinois’ congressional delegation, there’s little enthusiasm. Some whom NOTUS spoke to on Wednesday and Thursday said they didn’t want to comment on the rumors, while some called attention to Emanuel’s controversial record as mayor of Chicago and said his brand of Democratic politics is not what the party needs right now.
“I think he’d be challenged. I think he would have to probably reinvent himself significantly to be a candidate that all the sectors could unite around, given some of his past history,” Rep. Chuy Garcia told NOTUS.
Garcia, who attempted to unseat Emanuel when the latter was mayor in 2015, told NOTUS that the next DNC chair should be someone who can rev up the whole spectrum of the party.
Other lawmakers, including Rep. Jonathan Jackson, didn’t want to comment before it was final that Harrison was leaving or that Emanuel was running. At least one member, Rep. Robin Kelly, hadn’t even heard about the possibility of his run.
And Reps. Sean Casten and Eric Sorensen, who represent more suburban and rural areas of the state, each told NOTUS they hadn’t put much thought into it.
Rep. Lauren Underwood declined to comment.
Emanuel may have at least one ally in his former delegation, though: moderate Rep. Brad Schneider. Schneider praised Emanuel’s record at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which he led in the 2006 cycle, helping Democrats recapture the House.
“He did an extraordinary job,” Schneider said of Emanuel’s DCCC tenure. “And I think we have a lot of really outstanding candidates, names that I’ve seen mentioned, but I think he’d be a really good DNC chair.”
Already, some national Democratic figures have strong takes on Emanuel, both in opposition and in favor.
His supporters include his former Obamaworld colleague David Axelrod, who praised Emanuel on a podcast recently and later posted on social media that Emanuel “knows how to fight and win!”
His opponents include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who opposed Biden picking him as ambassador to Japan. She posted on X last week in response to the Axios news, implying that Emanuel represents “the seed of the party’s political crisis” in emphasizing relationships with donors over those with working people.
Emanuel is known for being a brash political brawler who takes a no-holds-barred tack with donors, pollsters and members of Congress alike. Progressives don’t like him, in part because of his handling of the police shooting of a Black teenager in 2014, which tanked his approval rating and sparked weeks of protests in Chicago.
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Helen Huiskes is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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