David Hogg, Parkland Survivor and D.N.C. Vice Chair, Hopes to Unseat Democratic Incumbents

Less than three months after the young political activist David Hogg was elected as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, he is undertaking a new project that is sure to rankle some fellow Democrats: spending millions of dollars to oust Democratic members of Congress in primary elections next year.

Mr. Hogg, 25, who emerged on the political scene as an outspoken survivor of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., said his party must squelch a pervasive “culture of seniority politics” that has allowed older and less effective lawmakers to continue to hold office at a moment of crisis.

And so he is planning through a separate organization where he serves as president, Leaders We Deserve, to intervene in primaries in solidly Democratic districts as part of a $20 million effort to elect younger leaders and to encourage a more combative posture against President Trump.

In an interview, Mr. Hogg said he understood that he would face blowback for his decision to serve simultaneously as a top official in the party — which is typically focused on electing Democrats over Republicans — and as a leader of an effort to oust current Democratic lawmakers.

“This is going to anger a lot of people,” Mr. Hogg said of his efforts, which he began to brief allies, some lawmakers and party officials on in recent days. He predicted “a smear campaign against me” that would aim to “destroy my reputation and try to force me to stop doing this.”

“People say they want change in the Democratic Party, but really they want change so long as it doesn’t potentially endanger their position of power,” he said. “That’s not actually wanting change. That’s selfishness.”

His decision to engage directly in primaries threatens to fracture the leadership of the Democratic National Committee.

At a private meeting last month, a “neutrality policy” was circulated asking the party’s top officers to refrain from any activity that would “call into question their impartiality and evenhandedness,” according to two people with knowledge of the pledge, which sought to cover officers “both in their D.N.C. capacity and in their personal capacity.”

Everyone signed it — except Mr. Hogg.

Ken Martin, the party’s chairman, said in a statement, “In order to ensure we are as effective as possible at electing Democrats to office, it is the D.N.C.’s longstanding position that primary voters — not the national party — determine their Democratic candidates for the general election.”

He added, “David Hogg is a passionate advocate and we are grateful for his service to the Democratic Party, whether it be in his role as a D.N.C. vice chair or in an outside capacity.”

The D.N.C. is planning to work with Mr. Hogg and internal committees to determine what comes next, a party official said.

A generational divide has emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s most contentious rifts in the early stages of the Trump administration, as younger officials press their elders to toss aside deference for more confrontation.

“What we are not saying here is, ‘Oh, you’re old, you need to go,’” Mr. Hogg said of older officials. “What we’re saying is we need to make room for a new generation to step up and help make sure that we have the people that are most acutely impacted by a lot of the issues that we are legislating on — that are actually going to live to see the consequences of this.”

Mr. Hogg said Leaders We Deserve would focus heavily on House races and back primary challengers only in safe Democratic districts, which are not at risk of falling into Republican hands in 2026. The group also plans to spend on contests for state legislatures. He said the central issue was not ideological but rather how capable and active lawmakers were at pushing back on the Trump administration.

“More than anything, it is: Do you want to roll over and die, or do you want to fight?” he said. “And too many people look at our party right now and feel like we want to roll over and die.”

Mr. Hogg said he was not yet ready to name any incumbents whom his organization planned to try to unseat. But he stressed that the criteria for challengers to get his group’s backing would not simply be age. Notably, he cited two examples of effective older lawmakers who have drawn primary challengers in 2026 but who he believes deserve re-election: Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, 80, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, 85.

“Big announcement soon,” Kevin Lata, the executive director of Leaders We Deserve, teased in an interview of the group’s first endorsements.

Mr. Hogg has begun to marshal some support in advance of announcing his plans.

Randi Weingarten, an influential D.N.C. member and the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said she was backing Mr. Hogg’s efforts to insert his group into primaries, though she said she did not know yet of any specific members being targeted.

“Yes, it will ruffle some feathers, and yes, some people will be upset,” Ms. Weingarten said. “The key is that they are trying to create the connection between the long-term values of the party and people who don’t see it. And you have to do things differently to make that connection.”

The vice chair roles in the party are both ceremonial and official. They are elected by the full membership of the party and included in the party’s official bylaws but without many specific powers beyond serving in the committee’s leadership.

After the 2018 shooting, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Mr. Hogg helped form March for Our Lives, a youth movement to stop gun violence. He graduated from Harvard in 2023. Months later, he and Mr. Lata formed Leaders We Deserve.

Mr. Hogg has drawn heavy attention from conservative media for his activism and some of the left-wing positions he has embraced, including, as he wrote on social media three years ago, that all drugs should be legalized and that no one should have more than $1 billion in assets — and that “there should be a 100 percent tax after your first billion.”

Leaders We Deserve raised nearly $12 million last election cycle, mostly from small contributors, though the organization counted some major donors among its financiers, including the California-based investor Ron Conway, who gave $500,000.

Mr. Hogg was one of five officials selected as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee in February. He has continued to raise money and sign fund-raising emails for Leaders We Deserve while serving in that role.

And while Mr. Hogg said the 2026 efforts would not be based on ideology, he did say that some younger challengers were likely to run to “the right” of incumbent Democratic lawmakers — and that those challengers would not garner his group’s support. “That is not who we are looking to support,” he said.

His organization generally supports candidates who are 30 or younger for state legislatures and those who are 35 or younger in federal campaigns.

Sunjay Muralitharan, the national president of College Democrats of America, said he supported Mr. Hogg’s efforts.

“His willingness to challenge the status quo while holding an official role is part of the reason why I believe he’s a good leader for Gen Z,” he said.