The New Democrat Network is an American think tank that promotes progressive Democratic candidates, especially those in a more centrist vein, although this focus has waxed and waned. NDN is a 501(c)(4) membership organization that functions in conjunction with its two subsidiary organizations, the NDN Political Fund, a non-federal political organization (527), and NDN PAC, a federal political action committee. As a whole, the organization works to advance the 21st Century American progressive movement, with particular focus on advocacy, strategy and investment in emerging leaders and projects.
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NDN is led and was founded by Simon Rosenberg in 1996 after his split with the Democratic Leadership Council, for which he worked. Before founding NDN, Rosenberg worked as a television news writer and producer and a political strategist for the Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton presidential campaigns and the Democratic National Committee. NDN has offices in Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco, and Miami.
NDN claims that it uses a more technologically modern and grassroots participatory approach to its activities than the DLC. The NDN, while not supporting or embracing 2004 Democratic presidential primary candidate Howard Dean, has pointed to his online network of small donors, volunteers, and bloggers as the model to emulate for the Democratic Party. The NDN is now challenging the DLC and is becoming an increasingly influential player in the party's politics.
In the 2004 presidential race, NDN led an effort to turn out Hispanic voters for John Kerry.
In 2004, Rosenberg announced his candidacy for Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, but eventually withdrew from the race after it became clear that he would lose to eventual Chairman Howard Dean. Rosenberg then supported Dean's campaign.
NDN is currently in the midst of launching two of its premier initiatives for the coming election years: the New Politics Institute (NPI) and the Hispanic Project.
Working like a conventional policy-oriented think tank, NPI seeks to assemble what it sees to be many of the finest minds in progressive politics, the non-profit world and the private sector in order to study, master, incubate and promote new strategies, technologies and techniques for the rapidly changing politics of the new century.
In 2003 and 2004, the Hispanic Project produced more than twenty commercials on Spanish-language television, radio and Internet that sought to speak directly to America's growing Latino community and highlight the values and ideals that they see as the bond between Hispanic voters and progressive causes, and has recently stepped up its ad campaigns and project initiatives in hopes of reclaiming lost ground among those voters as evidenced by the outcome of the 2004 presidential election.