Capital-Star Q&A: Kenyatta talks Democrats’ direction after becoming DNC vice chair

In January, state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia) told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star that he wanted to help the Democratic Party “get back to basics” as he launched his candidacy for Democratic Party National Committee (DNC) vice chair.

On Feb. 1, Democrats convened to elect a slate of new leadership and Kenyatta won one of the three  DNC vice chair positions. 

The 34-year-old lawmaker from Philadelphia, who became the first openly LGBTQ+ person of color elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018, continues to represent the 181st district as he takes on this new role. 

“We have an opportunity to bring some common sense, working class values to the national party,” Kenyatta told the Capital-Star in an interview on Feb. 11. “Growing up in North Philly, I think a lot of people experience it through our sports fandom. But Philadelphians tell you what they think. They’re folks who get up every single day, work their hearts out and know that they deserve a government that’s functioning for them on their behalf.”

Democrats suffered significant losses in 2024. President Donald Trump won back the White House with the help of Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes. Kenyatta, who was a candidate for state auditor general, also lost his bid for statewide office to incumbent Republican Tim DeFoor as the GOP also swept the state’s other row offices (attorney general and treasurer) that were on the ballot. Longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Casey lost to Republican Dave McCormick

However, Kenyatta said that he, along with the entire leadership team led by new DNC Chairman Ken Martin, “recognize that this is a moment of revival” for the party by raising money and communicating the message Democrats need to win elections nationwide. That work starts here in Pennsylvania with a special election set to take place in March that could tip the power in the General Assembly, as well as retention races for the state Supreme Court. There’s also a state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin that will garner a lot of attention, as well as gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia later this year. 

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Capital-Star: How much of an impact do you think President Donald Trump will have on races this year, and how should Democrats respond to Trump in this term?

Kenyatta: What we’re seeing in this administration is the worst reverse Robin Hood that we could have imagined, where we have the wealthiest people in the world doing everything they can every single day to rip away hard fought protections that Democrats achieved in the first place.

Take, for example, what the president did, illegally freezing funding for Head Start, putting Social Security and Medicare at risk, and dismantling government piece by piece, to sell it off, to be privatized to the highest bidder, and leaving poor and working people holding the bag. 

Perfect example is they’re trying to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The CFPB was responsible for capping the fees that people have to pay when they have an overdraft. We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that were put back into the pockets of working people and working families that now big banks are going to be able to dole out again, dish out again, putting people who are already in a tough spot in an even tougher position.

Donald Trump and Republicans believe that you should pay more. They believe that banks should be able to screw you over. 

A federal judge just yesterday made clear that the administration is violating the restraining order put in place by this federal judge to send out payments to Head Start, as one example. The Trump administration literally wants to keep people from being able to drop off their kids at a common sense well-protected child care facility.

Democrats want working people to not be treated like garbage. Donald Trump believes that working people should pay more. Democrats are for lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Donald Trump, the first executive order he signed, one of the first, was to repeal the provisions that lower the cost of prescription drugs using administrative action.

And so Democrats are for lower prices. They’re for dignity on the job. Donald Trump is for higher prices and for workers getting screwed. It’s that simple.

Capital-Star: A Quinnipiac University survey showed that 57% of registered voters have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, which is the highest since they started asking that question, in 2008. So what are the issues that you think can help Democrats win back voters?

Kenyatta: I think a part of it is, Democrats, first of all, have to change the way that we tell our own story about who we are. 

I am not going to spend the next four years somehow apologizing for being a Democrat, apologizing for being the party that passed Social Security, Medicare and also being the party that wants to protect it from these scoundrels that want to rip away those hard earned benefits for our seniors and our working families.

Democrats should not be shy. We should be damn proud of being the party of unions and of people being respected on the job. 

Republicans in Congress introduced just this last week, a bill to overturn OSHA protections so that if you get hurt on the job, you’re screwed.

What Democrats have to do is to get out of this idea that who we are is dictated by what the op-ed pages say from, you know, these billionaire owned legacy media. We have to tell our own story.

Democrats have to tell the truth, and we have to be aggressive about communicating to the American people what we have done and what we stand for because I think the challenge we face right now is that Democrats have accomplished a hell of a lot, and so many Americans in the last election told us in survey after survey, that they did not know that Democrats did those things. They supported the things that we did, but they didn’t know that we did them.

And so we cannot continue to be the tree that falls in the forest that nobody hears. We are going to be loud. We’re going to be consistent about telling our own story.

One of the things that was one of my first ideas as vice chair that you see being pushed out every day is Democrats are putting out a list daily of what Democrats did today and under the leadership of our incredible chair, Ken Martin…Democrats have to go out and tell our story, tell it on every platform, every medium, and be confident in what we believe and what we’re fighting for.

I mean, we have a guy who literally has spent every day so far doing everything, but trying to lower the cost of eggs, of the things that people pay for and instead have done things like I mentioned, with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with cutting off Head Start funds with putting Medicare and Social Security at risk.

He’s done all of that so that he can do a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, and so Democrats are going to have to communicate this choice to the American people.

Do we think that we should cut Social Security and Medicare so that billionaires can get another tax break? I think the answer to that is no, and Democrats are going to put that in front of the American people every single day.

Capital-Star: 2024 was viewed as a successful year for Republicans in Pennsylvania and nationwide. Why do you think they had more success than Democrats last year?

Kenyatta: Listen, I’m not vice chair of this party, so we can play Monday morning quarterback.

Last year, Democrats narrowly lost an important election. Those are the facts. But what is also the fact is that we can’t spend the next four years fighting the last war. There’s a principle, military principle, that you don’t fight the last war.

This next election, the election that’s in front of us is going to be about whether or not Donald Trump was being honest on his interest in helping working people across this country.

I think what we’ve seen so far of this administration is here we go again with chaos, confusion, corruption to benefit a small handful of the wealthiest people in the world at the expense of working people who are just trying to live a life with decency and dignity.

So there have been a thousand things written about the last election. The last election is over.

What we have to focus on are the next elections.

That starts with the special election that we have in Allegheny County, that not just the House Democrats are focused on, but that national Democrats are focused on as well.

The next thing that’s up is making sure Hakeem Jeffries becomes the next speaker of the House. We have three special elections that are going to be really, really difficult to reign in all across this country, that we have strong candidates in that are going to compete.

And I think that what we need to do, and what we are doing is being fearlessly focused on the future.

I’m not spending four years talking about four years ago. I’m going to spend every single day that I have in this job talking about what we need to do next, and what we need to do next is continue to tell our story and continue to point out that Donald Trump has done everything to make prices more expensive for working people and working families, also that he can cut taxes for the wealthiest people to ever exist on the face of the planet, that is what the next election is going to be about.

Capital-Star: So what is the biggest takeaway Democrats have from the previous election? What are the goals that would make 2025 a successful year for Democrats?

Kenyatta: A part of what I’m so excited about with the leadership of Chairman Martin, and a part of why I ran is I am a state legislator, and what the point that I make to people who talk about the national elections is, we did not get here overnight. 

The attacks that we’re seeing against working people and working families, they’re not happening because Republicans won one election one year. It’s because we had, in many ways, gotten into the stinking thinking that everything that matters is happening in DC, when the reality is most things that matter are happening exactly where you live.

You know it was in state legislatures, and here in Pennsylvania, where Republicans were trying to make it more difficult for people to vote and trying to gerrymander our maps. That happened right here. That didn’t happen in DC.

It was happening at local school boards, like in Cumberland County, where they’re trying to and in Bucks County as well, where they’re trying to ban books and take away the ability for us to tell our full history. That’s not happening in DC, that’s happening here.

It’s here locally, where people are asking questions about how municipalities can change zoning laws to build more housing, that’s not happening in DC, that’s happening where we live.

And so as a Democratic Party, we have made a mistake, in my view, of ceding the local elections to Republicans and only focusing on what’s happening in DC. What’s happening in DC is important. We have to focus on it. We have to focus on the fact that Donald Trump is trying to make us hate each other so that he can pick our pockets and give more money to his billionaire owners.

We have to be in this moment focused on the local elections that build a foundation for us to win nationally. If you want to win nationally, you have to win locally. 

Capital-Star: How will the message from the DNC differ from prior midterms and prior years?

Kenyatta: Everything you’re seeing happen out of Washington right now has the impact of raising prices for working people. 

Our message is simple. 

Democrats believe that working people shouldn’t be treated like trash. That working people should have the ability to have one good job, hopefully backed up by a union, that that good job should afford you the ability to buy a home in a community where you and your family are safe, and that if, in the process of working that good family sustaining job, you get hurt, that you’re able to go to the doctor and not be bankrupt because you got sick and that then that good job should put you and your family in a position that you can then retire with a level of dignity and decency in the community where you raised your family. 

Republicans believe that you shouldn’t have Medicare or Social Security or health care, and the reason you shouldn’t have those things is because that takes money out of the pockets of billionaires who they believe deserve even more tax cuts.

And so the question that voters are going to have to answer in every election is, do you believe that we should rip away Medicare, Social Security, Head Start so that folks like Elon Musk can pay even less in taxes? That is the only question.

Democrats believe the answer to that question is hell no, that we shouldn’t rip away hard fought, hard won benefits like Social Security and Medicare that people paid their whole life into so that billionaires can get yet another tax break that balloons our deficit, that simple. Democrats believe you should pay less and be treated with respect. That is what’s on the line. That’s what we’re going to talk about every single day.