Roger Lau named DNC executive director

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin is promoting from within as he fills out his senior leadership team, taking a stay-the-course approach to staffing despite the party’s losses in November.

Roger Lau, who has been serving as the DNC’s deputy executive director since 2021, will be the DNC’s next executive director, committee officials shared first with POLITICO. He replaces Sam Cornale.

The appointment of Lau, a veteran campaign hand who managed Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential bid, comes after Martin — himself a longtime party tactician and state party chair in Minnesota — was elected on Feb. 1 to lead the DNC. Their selections reflect the DNC’s post-election preference for experienced operatives over shaking up the party apparatus on South Capitol Street.

Libby Schneider will become deputy executive director after serving as chief of staff of the DNC, senior adviser and national rural political director. Jessica Wright joins the DNC as deputy executive director and chief of staff to the chair. She served as deputy chief of staff for operations at the State Department during President Joe Biden’s administration and is an Obama administration alum.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Washington State Democrats Chair Shasti Conrad and union chief Stuart Appelbaum, who leads the DNC’s Labor Council, will serve as associate chairs. They round out a diverse leadership team that follows a race for DNC chair that was defined by — and criticized for — its homogeneity.

“The DNC is thrilled to announce a new slate of leaders whose depth and breadth of experience will support the Democratic Party in holding the Trump administration accountable and fighting for working families,” Martin said in a statement. “At such a critical moment, we are excited to have experienced, aggressive operatives who are ready to roll up their sleeves and defend Democratic values up and down the ballot.”

Martin’s don’t-rock-the-boat approach to building out the apparatus that will guide the DNC through a difficult midterm election and into the next presidential cycle comes as top officials and strategists engage in a raging debate over Democrats’ branding and how the party out of power should be navigating President Donald Trump’s second term.

Democrats who struggled at the outset to settle on a cohesive opposition message have in recent days seized on Trump and Elon Musk’s mass firings of federal workers and Republicans’ possible cuts to Medicaid as rallying cries.

But many Democrats, including some governors and rank-and-file lawmakers, are urging congressional leaders to take even stronger stands against the president and his billionaire ally’s attempts to dismantle federal agencies and override legislative-branch authority — even though the party has next to no leverage in either chamber. The DNC is also still trying to find its footing there, with a staffer recently issuing a mea culpa on X after a 32-point list of what Democrats did in February — a play on the emails Musk has sent directing federal employees to detail five things they’ve done in the past week — was roundly mocked.

Meanwhile, some of the party’s more moderate lawmakers and consultants are using Democrats’ electoral shellacking as an opening to try to steer the party away from the more progressive messaging and ideological posturing that defined its response to Trump’s first term.

And still others are cautioning Democrats to wait until Trump steps in it himself — with veteran Democratic strategist James Carville recently urging the party to “roll over and play dead” until public opinion sours on the opposition.

But Martin and Lau say they are charging ahead.

Lau said in a statement that when Democrats are “in the opposition party, the work of the DNC is more important than ever” and that the committee “will leverage the vast infrastructure that we’ve built within the DNC and our state parties while meeting this moment by deepening our partnerships, strengthening grassroots organizing, and turbocharging messaging to win elections.”