The Washington Post

Amid the wreckage of Hillary Clinton’s loss, Democrats have started jockeying for control of the national party – and vigorously debating a dramatic course correction in response to Donald Trump’s election.

The upcoming choice of a new Democratic National Committee chairman could become an early proxy fight between the establishment wing of the party, embodied by Clinton, and the party’s more liberal members, many of them aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, the party’s runner-up in the Democratic primaries.

Sanders and other liberal lawmakers and advocacy groups say the DNC needs to be reimagined as less of an insider’s club focused on raising money and more of an advocate for the working-class voters won over Tuesday by the Republican president-elect.

With Clinton’s loss, the DNC chairman is certain to become a more visible face of the Democratic Party, and the contest to replace interim chairwoman Donna Brazile now appears to be a wide-open affair. Brazile stepped in for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, who announced her resignation in July after the release of a trove of hacked emails that suggested that the DNC was aiding Clinton in preference to Sanders in the primaries.

Had Clinton won Tuesday, she would have been expected to name an ally to head the DNC.

The candidate garnering the most early attention is Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, a co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a favorite of liberal advocacy groups and a Muslim – a fact that his supporters argue would send a strong signal about the party’s diversity during Trump’s tenure.

Support for Ellison has extended beyond his liberal base; already backed by Sanders, he won the endorsement Friday of Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, who is expected to be the next Senate minority leader.

Ellison plans to announce his bid for the chairmanship Monday.

Sanders said he thinks a DNC “preoccupied” with raising large sums of money from wealthy donors was partly responsible for Tuesday’s loss.

“You can’t tell working people you’re on their side while at the same time you’re raising money from Wall Street and the billionaire class,” Sanders said. “The Democratic Party has to be focused on grass-roots America and not wealthy people attending cocktail parties.”

On a conference call Saturday between Clinton and her top donors, her finance director, Dennis Cheng, said Clinton’s fundraising operation had raised $972 million for her campaign, the DNC and state parties. Of that amount, 56 percent was “generated by the people on this call,” Cheng said.

In total, the campaign held more than 1,500 fundraisers, of which Clinton attended nearly 400 herself, and more than 3 million people made donations, Cheng said.

Sanders acknowledged the need for the party to continue its function as a fundraising vehicle but suggested a model akin to his presidential campaign, which raised much of its money from small-dollar donors.

“Millions of people are willing to put in 20 bucks, 30 bucks, 50 bucks if there’s a party to believe in,” he said.

His views have been echoed by several liberal groups that are supportive of Ellison.

“The Democratic establishment had their chance with this election,” said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “It’s time for new leadership of the Democratic Party – younger, more diverse and more ideological – that is hungry to do things differently, like leading a movement instead of dragging people to the polls.”