Artie Blanco is no stranger to the inner workings of the Democratic Party — or to moments where it has been in the political wilderness.

Over the years and through myriad organizing roles with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and AFL-CIO, Blanco has witnessed a multitude of Democratic ebbs and flows, from the triumphant building of Barack Obama’s winning 2008 coalition to the unexpected losses of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.

With the party locked out of power and having lost the popular vote for the first time in decades, Blanco (who has worked in Nevada since 2009) ran for DNC vice chair with a motto of “back to basics” — a return to the organizing principles she learned under former DNC Chair Howard Dean and the late Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. 

“We don't have the White House,” Blanco said in an interview with The Nevada Independent. “That means whoever the chair is and the officers are, there's an opportunity to be bold. There's an opportunity to bring out new ideas. There's an opportunity to just revert back to basics.”

At the DNC’s leadership elections on Feb. 1, Blanco was elected vice chair, the first candidate to gain enough votes to secure one of three positions (fellow vice chairs elected were Pennsylvania Assemblyman Malcolm Kenyatta and gun control activist David Hogg). The vice chair role is vaguely defined, but involves building the party’s national infrastructure to facilitate winning elections.

Her victory was celebrated by Nevada Democrats, including those in the congressional delegation and state party chair Assm. Daniele Monroe-Moreno (D-North Las Vegas). 

“Our national party is stronger with Artie in leadership as she understands what it takes to win back working class voters and rebuild our broad coalition of voters and communities of color,” Monroe-Moreno said in a statement after Blanco’s victory.

Blanco’s priorities as vice chair include deploying the tactics that Democrats used after the losses of 2004 — implementing year-round organizing, building a program to talk to hard-to-reach voters and improving strategic partnerships with state parties.

As the DNC’s Southwest political director in 2005, Blanco helped pilot Dean’s state partnership program, part of the former Vermont senator’s famed “50-state strategy.” She would regularly communicate with the executive directors of state parties in the Southwest, in order to relay back to the DNC what voters in various states were talking about and what messages were working in order to develop a national communication strategy — steps foreshadowing successful tactics used by Obama.

“Before we have a nominee, we’ve got to know what people are talking about [and] are concerned about in our states,” Blanco said. “Our organizers who are doing year-round programming — that's who we need to make sure that we're communicating with … I believe that that's where some of the miss [of 2024] has happened.”

‘Continue to advocate for Nevada’

Originally from Houston, Blanco, the daughter of a Mexican immigrant who grew up in Democratic politics in Texas, cut her teeth working for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) and in the Texas Legislature. She first spent time in Las Vegas during the 2006 election cycle. She moved to Nevada in 2009 to run programs focused on expanding and engaging Nevada’s Latino electorate. 

With investment from Reid, Blanco said she learned the importance of knocking on every door in Latino communities — not just those on registered voter lists. Reid, Blanco said, understood the value of having a community presence among growing demographic groups in Nevada, including both Latinos and Asian American and Pacific Islander voters, so that the state party could ensure it was talking about the same issues that key voter groups cared about. 

Blanco later became the Nevada state director for the AFL-CIO and was named the influential labor union’s national campaign director in 2023.

Moving forward, Blanco said the DNC needs to do a better job of talking about the issues voters care about — not the ones that the party wants them to care about. In labor organizing, she said, that meant drilling down on the economy and health care — and doing more listening than dictating a top-down message.

“On the messaging piece, a lot of the times I felt like we're just talking to ourselves,” Blanco said.

Blanco also pointed to Democrats’ manner of speaking as an area that needs improvement. 

“Unfortunately, Democrats don't come off as authentic and real people,” she said, citing a constant cautiousness to avoid offending anyone. “It's OK for us to be authentic in conversation and have real dialogue with people that don't agree with you. It's hard to do in the moment, but that's why year-round organizing is important.”

With her role, Blanco is now the highest-ranking Hispanic member of the DNC — giving her a sizable opportunity to influence how the party attempts to win back the key constituency that Democrats lost ground with in 2024. In Nevada, where Latinos make up 20 percent of the electorate, winning Latino voters back will be critical for Democrats to win statewide once again after Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state in two decades.

Blanco kicked off her tenure as vice chair on Feb. 8 by hosting a lunch with Latino DNC members in South Florida to discuss strategies, including partnering with influencers and having more regular contact with influential podcasts.

Nevada’s high concentration of Latino voters is also part of state Democrats’ pitch for why Nevada should be first on the 2028 Democratic presidential primary calendar. Multiple states are jockeying for the opportunity to go first, but as a longtime voice for Nevada, Blanco is now in a prime position to influence the DNC’s decision-making process.

With no sitting president to dictate the calendar order, the DNC’s Rules & Bylaws Committee led by new Chair Ken Martin will set the nomination schedule. Nevada Democrats are planning to make their case once again that the Silver State deserves to go first — and Blanco plans to be part of the pitch. 

“Now that I'm in this new role, you know, I obviously want to continue to advocate for Nevada in the early window and [as] first in the nation, as I've done for the last 11 years on the DNC,” she said.