A survivor of the 2018 Parkland high school shooting has become one of the new vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee.
Former student-turned-gun-control activist David Hogg, 24, was among three people elected to the position Saturday during a meeting in National Harbor, Md., just outside of Washington, DC, to elect the DNC’s next suite of leaders.
“I’m deeply grateful to the members for their trust and belief in me and I don’t take it lightly,” Hogg wrote on X after clinching the role.
Hogg has nudged Democrats to become less judgmental and more forceful in their messaging as the party dithers over what direction to take under the second Trump administration.
“It’s time we stop surrendering, go on offense, and take the fight to Donald Trump,” he added on X. “We need to show [the public] who we are again, to rid our party of its judgmental attitudes, and do the work to win back every group we lost this year.”
Hogg notched around 215 votes, and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta scored 298 votes, above the 205 threshold. Artie Blanco from Nevada nabbed the third vice chair role during the third round of voting.
Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party Chair Ken Martin landed the coveted position of DNC chairman, succeeding Jaime Harrison.
Hogg was thrust into the national spotlight after a gunman stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February 2018 and slaughtered 17 people while injuring 17 others.
The deadly mass shooting sparked national outcry over killer Nikolas Cruz’s previous violent threats and how he got access to the AR-15 he used for the slaughter, while Hogg quickly emerged as one of the leading activists for gun control, playing a key role in the March for Our Lives demonstration.
Hogg later graduated from Harvard University and moved to DC.
“After Parkland, our country was in a similar moment — where we had a Republican trifecta in Washington,” he said during the DNC election over the weekend. “We went on the offense, put the Republicans on the defense, and we won. That’s what we need to do right now.”
During the DNC elections, Democrats acknowledged that the party faced a drubbing in the 2024 cycle, with President Trump sweeping all seven battleground states and winning the presidential popular vote as a Republican for the first time in two decades.
Moreover, the GOP swept back to power in the Senate and has been buoyed by a feeling that conservatives are on the cultural ascendency, with prominent companies such as Meta making concessions to them.
Progressive protests during Trump’s inauguration last month also paled in comparison to the behemoth demonstrations that erupted during his first inauguration back in 2017.
Hogg vowed to help change this dynamic as Democrats continue soul-searching over what went awry in November.
“We’re going to show people that the reason people should vote for us isn’t just because we’re not Republicans — it’s because we’re damn Democrats. We give a sh-t,” he pledged. “And we deliver. Now it’s time to rebuild the party and to rethink the way we’ve been doing things.”
But Hogg’s victory to serve as a DNC vice chair was greeted with delight from his conservative detractors.
“I love when they don’t learn,” Donald Trump Jr. swiped on X.
Conservative activist and organizer Scott Presler added, “The democrats just elected rabid anti-gun activist David Hogg as Vice Chairman for the DNC.
“In 2023, Hogg posted, ‘You have no right to a gun.’ To every hunter/gun owner in America, it’s time to vote,” Presler said.
“There are so many quotes. There is so much content to work with. Democrats just gave us a huge gift by electing anti-gun David Hogg as DNC Vice Chair.”
Andrew Pollack, a big Trump backer who lost his daughter in the Parkland shooting, wrote sarcastically, “I officially endorse David Hogg to be DNC Vice Chair.
“David is the greatest gun salesman of all-time & I think he will do an even better job pushing young men further to the right.”
