After Democratic Losses, a Little-Known Lawmaker Wants to Lead the Party

State Senator James Skoufis of New York announced on Sunday what is certain to be a long-shot bid to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee, pitching himself as an outsider candidate who has won in a part of the country where President-elect Donald J. Trump prevailed.

Mr. Skoufis, 37, has served in the New York State Legislature for a dozen years but is a virtual unknown outside Albany and his district, which covers Orange County in the Hudson Valley. He enters the race without extensive relationships with party members beyond New York State — a detriment he aims to turn into an advantage.

“We tried the D.C. Beltway thing, we tried the decades-long operative thing, we tried the sort of party machine thing over and over and over and over again,” Mr. Skoufis said in an interview last week. “And here we are.”

Where Democrats are is locked out of power in Washington, facing decades of conservative dominance over the federal courts and seemingly more depressed about Mr. Trump’s imminent return to power than motivated to win back political control.

In this environment, a candidate like Mr. Skoufis has little to lose and much to gain should he leave D.N.C. members with a positive impression — not to mention that it will be far easier to get booked on cable television as a candidate for party chair than as just a state senator.

Mr. Skoufis, who in an announcement video declared himself both an “outsider” and an “underdog,” enters the race without a single endorsement from one of the 448 voting members of the national committee. He joins a field that includes Ken Martin, the Minnesota Democratic chairman, and Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor. Other potential candidates include Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic chairman; Max Rose, a former congressman from Staten Island; and Chuck Rocha, a veteran Democratic consultant.