Longtime Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin has been elected chair of the Democratic National Committee in a commanding first ballot victory, vaulting him to the national stage while leaving a major hole to fill for local Democrats.

Here are five things to know about Ken Martin, the Minnesota party chair that Democrats just chose to lead the DNC.

But it was another side of Martin — what one DNC member, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called his ability to be a “knife-fighter” — that Democrats and their new chair himself on Saturday appeared to embrace.