The Democratic National Committee put up its Washington, D.C. headquarters building as collateral to secure a $15 million line of credit. The party that wants to run the entire American economy can't cover its own light bill.
D.C. deed records show the DNC leveraged its Southeast Washington headquarters — a building it only partially owns — to obtain the largest loan the party has ever taken during a midterm cycle. DNC Chair Ken Martin, elected in February 2025, authorized the move as the committee stared down $18 million in outstanding debt with just $16 million in cash on hand.
For context, the Republican National Committee is sitting on $128 million in cash reserves with zero dollars in debt.
A DNC official tried to wave it off, saying the building "was also used as collateral in our prior lines of credit in 2019, 2018, 2014, and many other years." Which is a fascinating defense. "We've been broke before" isn't the flex they think it is.
Martin, for his part, posted a Substack op-ed claiming the spending was a "conscious decision" to invest cash into "electoral assets: more people, earlier organizing, better technology, and stronger state parties." He added that "a party is not a savings account. Its purpose is to build power." Stirring stuff from a man whose organization is $18 million in the hole and just hocked the furniture.
But the financial mess isn't even Martin's biggest problem this week. Martin is the subject of an internal human resources inquiry after he threw his phone in the direction of a young aide during a call-time session in early July. Five sources with direct knowledge confirmed the incident. The aide wasn't struck, but multiple staffers in the room were shaken. One anonymous DNC source described it as "spiraling behavior."
Another source close to Martin said, "He's not in a great place at all. I'm very concerned." A separate DNC member was more direct: "Ken gaslighting us about the DNC's finances and not being transparent about the financial situation makes us doubt if he can oversee the DNC during the most important primary of our lifetime."
The transparency issue runs deeper than spin. Axios reported on July 16 that DNC officers were required to sign NDAs before being briefed on the committee's financial situation. When your own party officials need a non-disclosure agreement before you'll show them the books, the books are bad.
Meanwhile, the fundraising disadvantage extends well beyond the DNC itself. The Congressional Leadership Fund holds a $52 million advantage over the House Majority PAC. The NRSC leads the DSCC by $14.9 million. The NRCC is ahead of the DCCC by $13.7 million. Every single Democratic campaign arm is getting outraised by its Republican counterpart heading into November.
The DNC has a full vote on the 2028 presidential calendar scheduled for August, a contested primary with no clear frontrunner, and midterm races across the country that need funding now. They've got $16 million, $18 million in debt, an HR investigation into their chairman, and a building they don't fully own pledged to a bank.
That's not a political party. That's a subprime borrower with a mission statement.