Gun-Control Activist David Hogg Tapped for DNC Vice Chair

A mass-shooting survivor turned gun-control activist will assist steer the Democratic Social gathering’s political response to being shut out of federal energy.

David Hogg, a Parkland capturing survivor and March for Our Lives co-founder, was elected vice chair of the Democratic Nationwide Committee on Saturday. He secured his place alongside two different vice chairs and new occasion chairman Ken Martin, the previous head of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Social gathering, to assist lead the DNC’s efforts to regain electoral floor and fight the second Trump administration.

“I’m deeply grateful to the members for his or her belief and perception in me, and I don’t take it flippantly,” Hogg wrote on X after profitable his election. “Now it’s time to get to work.”

The altering of the guard atop the DNC comes because the occasion has been plagued by dejection, deep unpopularity, and inner recriminations within the aftermath of an election that noticed the occasion lose management of the White Home, Senate, and fail to retake the Home. Because the newly minted Republican trifecta continues to aggressively advance its agenda at a blistering tempo, Democratic occasion insiders have scrambled to marshal a political response and re-capture voters previously of their coalition, notably working-class males in swing states that helped tip the election towards Donald Trump. The election of David Hogg suggests the occasion is unlikely to melt its stance on gun restrictions as a part of that attraction.

Hogg, simply 24 years previous, rose to prominence within the aftermath of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty capturing in Parkland, Florida. After a gunman attacked the college—the place Hogg was a scholar on the time—killing 17 and wounding 17 others, he co-founded the group March for Our Lives and took part in nationwide protests calling for stricter gun legal guidelines that drew members numbering within the tons of of 1000’s.

He has continued to be a public advocate for gun management alongside different progressive causes. He’s finest identified for pushing the Democratic occasion to implement a hardline orthodoxy towards gun rights.

“You don’t have any proper to a gun,” he wrote in a 2023 social media publish. “You aren’t a militia. Whenever you’re speaking about your second modification rights, you’re speaking a few state’s proper to have what’s immediately the nationwide guard. The trendy interpretation of 2A is a ridiculous fraud pushed for many years by the gun foyer.”

“In the event you don’t assist banning semi-automatic rifles you need to depart the Democratic Social gathering and be a part of the Weapons Over Folks occasion,” he wrote in one other publish later that yr.

Hogg’s DNC candidacy drew the assist of distinguished Democratic figures, together with Minnesota Governor and VP candidate Tim Walz and California congressman Eric Swalwell.

“From taking over the gun foyer to mobilizing hundreds of thousands of younger individuals nationwide, he is aware of the way to construct actions that win,” Swalwell wrote in a press release on X.

With the election over and new blood coming in to steer the occasion’s future, the committee can be compelled to work rapidly to determine a gameplan because the opposition occasion and plan for upcoming off-year elections and the 2026 midterms. Ken Martin, the brand new chair elected to exchange the outgoing Jaime Harrison, has mentioned he plans to conduct a post-election evaluation to unravel what went flawed for Democrats final November however has not but dedicated to a broader plan for main the occasion’s messaging method.

For his half, Hogg appeared to counsel that his management function on the DNC would see him proceed to pursue a confrontational fashion and encourage the occasion to not draw back from its stance on weapons.

“We have to construct a Democratic Social gathering that’s genuine, relatable, earns individuals’s belief, and wins once more — and that stops apologizing for being who we’re,” he mentioned. “We’ve got to cease being cowards—it’s time to be daring, aggressive, and to battle—identical to we did after Parkland.”