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This week’s episode is about some of the hardest working people in the Democratic Party. I sat down with the state party chairs of the early presidential primary states to discuss how they manage to make everything work. Chair Ray Buckley (NH), Chair Daniele Monroe-Moreno (NV), and Chair Christale Spain (SC) joined me for a candid conversation about what it really takes to run a state party—from managing primaries and building county infrastructure to keeping the lights on and the volunteers motivated.
Chair Spain didn’t sugarcoat it:
“It really feels like a daily grind… trying to do it with limited resources. It feels like trying to be everything for everybody when you absolutely can’t. You need to be the teacher and the police officer, as Ray said, the referee.”
That daily grind is the reality for state party chairs across the country. With just seven or eight staff members, they are responsible for every layer of the political ecosystem all while raising the money to make it possible.
Chair Buckley has been doing this work longer than most of his staff have been alive. He told us:
“I started volunteering for Ed Muskie back when I was 11 or 12 years old… I got involved in Jimmy Carter’s campaign very early on in 1975, and really, there’s been no turning back since then.”
Decades later, he’s still at it, making sure his state stays competitive, training local leaders, and fighting to keep his party inclusive and strong.
Chair Monroe-Moreno’s path was different, but the mission is the same. A veteran lawmaker and union advocate, she stepped up when no one else would.
“I kept looking and looking for the right person to step up,” she said. “Finally, I said, you can’t complain if you’re not going to be part of the solution.”
She’s also clear-eyed about what that decision means, especially as a Black woman in leadership.
“I’m a Black woman in these spaces, and I’m sick and tired of having to prove to the world and especially to my party that I’m enough. Black women have to work three times as hard as any of our counterparts to prove that we’re worthy.”
And then there’s the reality that most people never see: the financial stress that comes with keeping an entire organization afloat.
“Not being able to make payroll… thinking that one week I might not be able to pay them is insanity,” Chair Spain admitted. “That does keep me up at night.”
When you pull back the curtain, you realize that the people shaping presidential primaries aren’t operating from glass towers in D.C. They’re doing it from crowded offices, late at night, driven by grit and love for their communities.
Because as Chair Monroe-Moreno said:
“We can’t take our foot off the gas. The work of a state party chair is a year-round job, 24/7.”
And that’s the truth of it.
The next time you hear someone say ‘the party should do more,’ remember they have to do it all.
— Jaime
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