Democrats still have a Gaza problem four months after Kamala Harris' loss.

A quartet of progressive advocacy groups are asking the Democratic National Committee in a new letter to better engage with pro-Palestinian voters, according to a copy shared with POLITICO — a sign that the party’s rift over the Israel-Hamas war could stretch into the midterms.

In the letter addressed to DNC Chair Ken Martin and Executive Director Roger Lau, IMEU Policy Project, IfNotNow, Gen-Z for Change and Justice Democrats accuse the Harris campaign of taking policy stances and issuing voter-outreach directives that served to “villainize” and “ignore” Democratic voters who were opposed to Israel’s actions in Gaza and wanted the Biden administration to withhold military aid to the country.

That includes limiting follow-up to people who responded to campaign text messages by asking about Gaza, according to a Harris campaign organizer granted anonymity to discuss the internal instruction that was previously reported by NBC News.

The groups are asking the DNC to improve data collection on that front — and to probe the Harris campaign’s actions on the issue as part of Martin's promised post-election review. They are asking for a meeting with the newly installed chair ahead of the report’s release to discuss their own voter-engagement experiences over Gaza.

They also want Martin to assess whether Harris and President Joe Biden’s stances on Israel and Palestine turned away voters, citing post-election polling from IMEU and YouGov that showed “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was the top issue for nearly 30 percent of voters who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 and someone other than Harris in 2024. The economy was a close second.

And they're angling to limit the influence of a powerful pro-Israel advocacy group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, by calling for a ban on super PAC spending in Democratic primaries — a signal of potential intra-party clashes over Israel policy to come.

The DNC did not immediately respond to questions about the letter.

Pro-Palestinian protests last year over the Biden administration’s handling of the war gave rise to a movement of “uncommitted” voters that opened a schism among traditionally Democratic constituencies and damaged Harris in some traditionally Democratic Arab American areas. Leaders in those communities have argued in the weeks and months since Harris’ loss that the then-vice president made strategic errors by refusing to give a Palestinian American a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention and shutting down protesters at campaign rallies who criticized her solidarity with Biden in supporting Israel.

“The chasm between the Democratic base and the Harris campaign could have been narrowed and course-corrected months prior to the election,” the advocacy groups argued in their letter to Martin. “The pattern of disregarding and ignoring the issues Democratic voters care about, may it be rising costs of living or ending U.S. complicity in war crimes abroad, will not lead to winning elections.”

The letter comes days after the arrest of a Palestinian graduate student involved in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University re-ignited a debate about immigration, free speech and anti-war protests on college campuses. Since President Donald Trump’s victory in November, pro-Palestinian groups in the U.S. have been confronting the challenge of an administration that has been sharply critical pro-Palestinian movement.

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© AP Photo/Seth Wenig

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.”

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Donald Trump is promising a “golden age of America” in his second term, and he’s issuing a raft of executive orders to try and make it happen.

The president signed a slew of orders and directives that aim to end birthright citizenship and crack down on illegal crossings at the southern border, increase domestic energy production and transform a federal government he views as both too bloated and too “woke.”

It’s unclear which of Trump’s executive actions will have immediate impact or are merely symbolic. But they’re already facing challenges. The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency drew lawsuits hours before Trump signed the paperwork to create it. Some of his more controversial orders — including the one targeting birthright citizenship — also immediately hit legal challenges. And while Trump pledged in his inaugural address to create an “External Revenue Service” to collect tariffs and revenues from foreign nations, he’ll need congressional approval to create the new agency.

Here’s a look at what Trump signed on Day One — and his executive actions since:

Jan. 6 pardons

Trump pardoned some 1,500 people who were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, a sweeping grant of clemency that fulfilled a campaign-trail promise and upended years of the Justice Department’s efforts.

Immigration

Trump signed a slew of executive orders on Monday aimed at delivering on his long-promised crackdown on illegal border crossings and immigration more broadly. He also declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, deploying U.S. Armed Forces to the region.

He intends to end birthright citizenship by issuing an executive action that would reinterpret the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to all people born on domestic soil — a move that drew swift legal challenges, including from Democratic attorneys general.

Trump also moved to:

• Resume construction of the border wall
• End so-called catch and release
• Temporarily suspend refugee resettlement from certain countries for at least four months
• Restart the “Remain in Mexico” policy of his first term
• Restrict asylum using 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act
• Designate drug cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations and invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove them — or, as he put it in his inaugural address, “eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil”
• Direct the incoming attorney general to seek capital punishment for the murder of law enforcement and capital crimes committed by undocumented immigrants

Energy

Trump wants to “drill, baby, drill.” He’s going to do it by declaring a “national energy emergency” that would give him the power to increase domestic energy production — and undo many of the Biden administration’s clean-energy policies. The White House also announced that the U.S. will withdraw, again, from the Paris Climate Accord.

Among Trump’s other planned moves:

• Issue a memorandum detailing a governmentwide approach to bringing down inflation, according to the Trump team
• End what his team has referred to as an “electric vehicle mandate”
• End leasing to massive wind farms that “degrade our natural landscapes and fail to serve American energy consumers”

Federal workforce

Want to work remote? Good luck. Trump signed executive orders last night focused on the federal workforce, including one order instructing all U.S. government departments and agencies to require employees to return to office, ending any remote accommodations. Trump also announced a hiring freeze across the executive branch except in “essential areas.”

The president also removed job protections for tens of thousands of government workers, which the White House said was necessary to rein in what Trump describes as “deep state” bureaucracy.

Among Trump’s other planned moves:

• End “radical and wasteful” diversity training programs, as well as environmental justice programs, equity-related grants and equity initiatives
• Freeze hiring except in essential areas to “end the onslaught of useless and overpaid DEI activists buried into the federal workforce,” according to the White House
• Freeze the issuing of new regulations
• Direct agencies to address the “cost of living crisis”
• Restore “freedom of speech” and “preventing government censorship”
• Create the “Department of Government Efficiency” 

Health

Trump said in his speech the White House will instruct the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, as well as other agencies to remove “nonbinary” or “other” options from federal documents, including passports and visas, according to an incoming administration official.

“It will officially be the policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” Trump said.

He also signed an executive order removing the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

Among Trump’s other planned moves:

• Reinstate military members who were penalized for not getting vaccinated against Covid-19

Trade

Trump hasn’t enacted new tariffs, yet. Instead, he issued an order on Monday directing federal agencies to investigate and address trade deficits and unfair trade and currency practices.

Among Trump’s other planned moves:

• Impose 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Feb. 1 (despite pledging to enact these broad tariffs on Day One)
• Establish the “External Revenue Service,” aiming to collect tariffs and other revenues from foreign nations

The rest

• Extend the deadline for TikTok to be divested or banned, a move that has questionable legality
• Suspend U.S. foreign assistance programs for 90 days pending a review of whether they align with his agenda
• Rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America — he’ll also return Mount Denali in Alaska to the name Mount McKinley, reversing an Obama-era change

© Evan Vucci/AP