Key Point: “Martin, the newly elected chair of the Democratic National Committee, hopes the adage can turn around his party’s fortunes in the South … To tackle this issue, Martin and the head of the Association of State Democratic Chairs signed an agreement that will boost funding for every state party in the nation, but increase funding even more in red states — the 23 states where Republicans are dominant in both federal and state politics. … ‘If you do this the right way, you can build both to win and to last,’ Martin said.”

Washington Post: The DNC chair wants his party to play the long game

By Dan Merica, Matthew Choi and Jacob Bogage

• Hockey fan Ken Martin is known to quote Wayne Gretzky’s famed “skate to where the puck is going” mantra.

• Gretzky used the maxim to become “The Great One.” Martin, the newly elected chair of the Democratic National Committee, hopes the adage can turn around his party’s fortunes in the South, where studies have found that political power could surge after upcoming congressional and electoral college reapportionment based on the 2030 census.

• “It is time for us to reimagine the DNC,” Martin told us. “And every crisis has an opportunity, and after the election, it was a crisis moment for our party, and it is an opportunity for us to reimagine the DNC and what its role is.”

• “As a Democratic Party, as the DNC, we actually have to have a longer-term plan, and we have to skate to where the puck will be,” Martin said. “We have to understand we can’t get caught flat-footed after the census and after the map shifts from underneath us.”

• This issue could be existential for Democrats. If the 2032 apportionment goes as planned, Democrats’ path to the presidency will be fundamentally altered: The “blue wall” states that vote reliably Democratic won’t be enough anymore. The party’s chances of a lasting majority in the House will also be notably dented.

• To tackle this issue, Martin and the head of the Association of State Democratic Chairs signed an agreement that will boost funding for every state party in the nation, but increase funding even more in red states — the 23 states where Republicans are dominant in both federal and state politics. Every state party will receive $17,500 a month from the national party, an increase of $5,000 from the last agreement, but red states will receive $22,500 a month.

• “If you do this the right way, you can build both to win and to last,” Martin said. “The focus by the DNC and by our committees in D.C. just on federal races has left so much … not actually helping us build the party up and down in a holistic manner.”