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David Hogg is leaving the Democratic National Committee after choosing not to run for reelection as vice chair amid backlash after he attempted to primary "out of touch, ineffective" incumbents in Congress, USA TODAY reports.
Hogg, 25, announced that his group, Leaders We Deserve, would donate $20 million to fund young progressive candidates who would challenge veteran incumbents in historically liberal districts in April. DNC chairman Ken Martin, however, urged officers to remain neutral in primary elections, which resulted in Hogg being given the ultimatum to resign from the committee or leave Leaders We Deserve.
The DNC voted to redo the election that made Hogg and Pennsylvania State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta vice chairs on June 11 due to a procedural squabble prior to Hogg announcing that he wouldn't run for vice chair again and, instead, intended to focus on Leaders We Deserve in a post shared on his X account.
"This culture simply will not change by only focusing on open seats or just throwing half a billion dollars into 30 competitive House seats. We must change the culture of our party that has brought us here and if there is anything activism or history teaches us it's that comfortable people, especially comfortable people with power, do not change," he wrote.
Hogg gained notoriety as one of the most outspoken Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting survivors against gun violence since 2018.
“I came into this role to play a positive role in creating the change our party needs. It is clear that there is a fundamental disagreement about the role of a Vice Chair — and it's okay to have disagreements. What isn’t okay is allowing this to remain our focus when there is so much more we need to be focused on,” he added in a followup post.