Rep. Keith Ellison said the job of a DNC chair isn't to weigh in on primary challenges. | Getty Democrats tread lightly on primary challenge question

Democrats don't want to talk about primary challenges.

Even though the 2018 campaign cycle has barely begun, top Democrats have been repeatedly confronted with a question: whether to support the prospect of primary challenges to elected Democrats. The question has come up again and again, especially when it comes to Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp, who both were floated for Cabinet positions under President Donald Trump.


And top Democrats aren't eager to weigh in. That caution was apparent during the last debate of Democratic National Committee candidates in Atlanta on Wednesday night. Moderator Dana Bash asked: "Is the notion of a purity test healthy for the Democratic Party?" Days before the DNC election, the candidates on stage weren't eager to offer a direct answer.

"I think the role of the DNC chair is to let the progress run its course. And then we move forward, you know, when the general election moves ahead," former Labor Secretary Tom Perez said in response. "And I'm confident that this year when you look across this country right now, in Virginia at state House of Delegates level, they have more candidates than ever before. This energy is electric."

Rep. Keith Ellison, Perez's arch-rival in the DNC primary contest, said the job of a DNC chair isn't to weigh in on primary challenges.

"Well, I'll say that I agree with Tom that the role of the DNC is to be neutral and fair to all primary contestants," Ellison said.

South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Jaime Harrison, another DNC candidate, said Democrats should focus more on fighting Republicans than each other.

"if we want to actually fight back against Donald Trump, let's spend our energy going after Ted Cruz, let's spend our energy going after the Republicans that are up," Harrison said. "We don't have the time, the energy, and all of the people that we are fighting for each and every day don't have time for these purity tests. We have to fight back against the Republicans, we can't fight each other."

In some corners of the Democratic Party, there have been early calls for some kind of primary challenges. In Florida, Sen. Bill Nelson is facing the prospect of facing as many as three Democratic challengers in the Democratic primary for his Senate seat.

Democratic organizers have also created a new progressive political action committee, called We Will Replace You, aimed to boost primary challenges to Democratic officials. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, one of the most active liberal political action committees, refused to denounce the PAC. Instead, PCCC co-founder Adam Green, in a statement, highlighted energy at the grassroots level of the Democratic Party and warned that Democrats refusing to fight Trump faced dim fates in the next election cycle.

"The energy is extremely high right now for ensuring that current Democratic office-holders fight Trump with strength — and ideally there would be no need for primaries against incumbents because Democrats in office will fight Trump so boldly, consistently, and effectively," Green said in a statement Friday. "But to be clear: Democratic politicians in red states who fail to fight strongly against Trump and seize the mantle of economic populism won't inspire people to vote — and they will lose the general election in 2018."

The debate came hours after former DNC chairman Howard Dean, one of the most influential non-voting members in the DNC election, endorsed South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, while also acknowledging that Perez and Ellison are the two front-runners. Dean, in a similar vein to Democrats advocating some kind of primary challenger, signaled that Democrats need to bring in new blood that isn't too closely associated with inside-the-Beltway thinking.

"I feel strongly that somebody from outside the Beltway has to do this," Dean said in an interview with POLITICO. "Because that's where Democrats are taking the biggest hit."

