Perez wins DNC fight
Former US Labor Secre-tary Tom Perez edged Min-nesota Rep. Keith Ellison by 35 votes Saturday to be-come the head of the Dem-ocratic National Commit-tee.
He promptly called Presi-dent Trump "the worst president in the history of the United States:'
After a months-long bat-tle many Dems compared to a presidential primary, Perez outlasted Ellison in the second round of voting in Atlanta, securing 235 votes to Ellison's 200. Perez had fallen one vote shy of the victory threshold in the first round of voting.
The results were another blow to Mayor de Blasio, who was in Atlanta to back Ellison. Perez announced he would make Ellison "dep-uty chairman" of the DNC and embraced him from the podium after the vote.
Ellison wiped away tears, thanked his supporters, and said, "We don't have the luxury of going out of this room divided."
When Perez took the stage, he slammed Presi-dent Trump and called for Democrats to remain en-gaged.
"They're going to ask the question ... where were you in 2017 when we had the worst president in the history of the US?" he said. 'We need every house call, we need to listen to people, we need to get back to basics, and we need to move forward," he added.
The former Cabinet member earned the en-dorsements of several Obama administration al-ums, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former Attorney General Eric Holder.
Ellison's most high-pro-file backer was Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but he also picked up support from Sen. Charles Schumer and Mayor de Blasio.
Democrats compared the race to a proxy war that re-fought the bruising 2016 primary between the left-wing Sanders and the party establishment led by Hil-lary Clinton.
Ellison enjoyed the sup-port of the party's upstart liberals, who saw his candi-dacy as a way to snatch a victory from November's presidential defeat. Perez, who was on Clinton's short list for vice president, was backed most strongly by Democratic stalwarts in the Obama and Clinton camps.
But Ellison, who is a Mus-lim, was damaged by criti-cism from pro-Israel orga-nizations and slams from major Democratic donors who blasted his past associ-ations with the Nation of Islam.