David Hogg Takes on House Democrats

DNC Vice Chair David Hogg

Gun violence being a reason someone enters politics in America is sadly not an isolated situation.  For example, Reps. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Lucy McBath (D-GA) both got into politics in part because of experiencing gun violence in their own lives (McCarthy's husband was killed in a mass shooting, McBath's teenage son was shot at a gas station in Jacksonville).  So it is not surprising that David Hogg, who was one of the survivors of the Parkland High School shooting in 2018, eventually used that as a platform to make a larger difference when it comes to gun violence.  The Parkland High School shooting became notable in the media because it was arguably the first mass shooting in America where the victims became more famous in the long-term than the actual shooter, and no figure from this became more prominent than Hogg.  Hogg, in the years that followed, would go on to appear on Dr. Phil, and became an outspoken advocate against then-House Speaker Paul Ryan.  As a result of this, Hogg endured a lot of publicity, some of it harmful, including being accosted by future Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Hogg has since then become a prominent figure in left-leaning podcasts & activist rallies, even launching a Leaders We Deserve PAC focusing on "helping young, progressive candidates around the country get elected to state legislatures and the US Congress."  But it wasn't until 2025 that Hogg attained actual power in the political infrastructure.  In February 2025, Hogg became one of five Vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee, serving alongside DNC Member Artie Blanco, State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, Reyna Walters-Morgan (a prominent figure in Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign), and incumbent Nebraska Democratic Chairwoman Jane Kleeb.  While the other four have more traditional backgrounds for the position of Vice Chair, Hogg's victory was one for the activist class, which have spent much of the past decade focusing on the DNC, particularly blaming them for the failure of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders loss of the presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020 (for the record, I can find no evidence that Hogg supported Sanders in either of those two campaigns...his most prominent political endorsement that I found is backing Tim Walz for the VP slot in 2024).

That activism and his youth were always going to make Hogg, a strikingly handsome 25-year-old man, an obvious source of headlines, which has been the case over the past week.  Hogg has stated that his Leaders We Deserve PAC intends to spend as much as $20 million to primary older Democratic incumbents in the upcoming midterms.  This is really unusual for someone representing the DNC, an organization whose primary focus is on electing Democratic nominees in various federal & state races, but because the nominees are almost always incumbents (and because the DNC is reliant upon support from incumbent members of Congress to help with their fundraising), it is atypical to spend money going against incumbents.  Predictably, this has invited a lot of backlash, much of it private given Hogg's sway (since incumbent members of Congress don't want to make themselves obvious targets for Hogg's money).  An Axios article did have an on-the-record quote from Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI), who at 43 is one of the youngest members of the House and therefore probably feels safer speaking publicly, saying this is "a disappointment from leadership...I can think of a million better things to do with twenty million dollars right now."

Hogg's message, it's worth noting, is catching a wave of momentum.  In the wake of Joe Biden's presidential loss, which many in the party blame in part on his inability to admit that he was too old to run for president, there are a number of progressive challenges to long-time, older incumbents popping up across the country.  Reps. Jan Schakowsky (age 80), Nancy Pelosi (age 84), and David Scott (age 79) are all getting primary challenges from candidates decades younger than them, though none of these incumbents have officially announced they'll retire (there are rumors all three will).  This comes in the wake of some more progressive members of the House being angry that Hakeem Jeffries did not do more to protect now-former Reps. Cori Bush & Jamaal Bowman last year to win their primaries against more moderate challengers (whom, it's worth noting, are now incumbents).

If you've been reading this blog a lot over the past year (bless you), you'll know that I have changed my mind a bit about valuing incumbency & experience over certain incumbents being too old to run for reelection.  I have seen, at this point, the effects of having incumbents who refuse to retire like Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, & Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the long-term damage this can entail.  Had Reps. Sylvester Turner & Raul Grijalva not run for reelection in 2024 (both were over 70), it's possible that Speaker Mike Johnson would not have been able to pass some of his budget bills over the past month (made possible by their seats being empty due to their recent deaths).  I do think that challenging candidates because of their age can be the right call, all things being equal, and you would think that I would back Hogg's mission here.

But I don't.  I do not think it's appropriate for a leader within the DNC to be doing something like this, and I'm going to tell you why.  To begin with, you have to look at the messenger.  David Hogg's politics oftentimes feel cultivated on social media (not surprising for someone so young), and read more like they are intent on raising rage dollars & engagement clicks than on making a true difference.  Case in point is Hogg stating in November 2024, after the defeat of incumbent-Rep. Mary Peltola in Alaska "good riddance" due to Peltola's record on gun control.  Peltola, though, is the kind of incumbent who makes majorities.  She is to the right on gun control of both Hogg and myself, but she's also the only Democrat who could have conceivably won this seat.  Majorities are not made by invisible swaths of progressives who magically show up to win (we have seen, repeatedly, that when you run a "true progressive" in a red constituency that it ends up with them losing by a larger margin than a moderate...the myth of the "stay-at-home progressive" is largely false).  You need to have incumbents like Peltola winning.

You also need to have some faith in the DNC protecting incumbents.  I think that some fear-of-God in incumbents is a good thing...I have also seen what it has done to the Republican Party, basically destroying it from within.  There are situations (like, say, Rep. Ed Case of Hawaii) where they are far more moderate than their blue seat needs to be.  And there are situations like the incumbents I mentioned (specifically David Scott, whose health issues have made him MIA for much of the past year in Congress) that have absolutely no business running for reelection.  But the DNC's job is not to police primaries-it should be to build as large of a majority as possible.  I get that Hogg is doing this with his PAC's money (not the DNC's), but he chose to be a leader in the DNC-with that comes the expectation of living by the point of the DNC, winning us back majorities in both houses of Congress and the White House.  Spending time & energy on constituencies like Schakowsky's, Scott's, & Pelosi's is pointless since a Democrat will win there no matter what.  Instead, you need to get more Democrats like Peltola to win-Democrats fighting to take back purple & pink territory that will need a moderate to win (and as we saw during the first two years of Joe Biden's terms in office, a moderate Democrat is exponentially more valuable than a conservative Republican).  Hogg shifting the conversation to an internal struggle, one that will result in tens of millions being spent on infighting, is not the kind of leadership you expect from the DNC.  It's not a case of him taking an activist approach in a typically staid organization (which I could respect)...it's basically trying to use his position to further his own importance, but not to the benefit of the Democratic Party.  I am supportive of ushering in a new generation of leaders, and am open to some aspects of what Hogg is attempting...but not in this way, and given his current job, not with this leader.