Perez tapped as national chairman
ATLANTA — Democrats chose former Labor Secretary Tom Perez as their new national chairman Saturday over a liberal Minnesota congressman, capping a divisive campaign that reflected the depths of the party’s electoral failures as well as the energy from resistance to President Donald Trump.
Perez, the first Latino to hold the post, edged Rep. Keith Ellison in the second round of voting by Democratic National Committee members gathered in Atlanta.
The new chairman must rebuild a party that in the last decade has lost about 1,000 elected posts from the White House to Congress to the 50 statehouses, a power deficit Democrats have not seen nationally in 90 years.
In a nod to his winning margin of 35 votes out of 435 cast, to say nothing of the lingering friction between old-guard Democrats and outspoken upstarts, Perez tapped Ellison to serve as deputy chair.
“We are all in this together,” Perez said, calling on Democrats to fight “the worst president in the history of the United States.”
Ellison, who had backing from many liberals, including 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, added his own call for unity and noted that he and Perez both want to rebuild state and local Democratic parties across the country.
“We don’t have the luxury of walking out of this room divided,” Ellison said, as the erstwhile rivals stood together on stage as some young Ellison supporters jeered from the gallery.
Trump chimed in via Twitter: “Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!”
Republicans control the White House, Congress and 33 governorships, while the GOP is one Senate confirmation from a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Despite President Barack Obama’s personal electoral successes, the party suffered crushing defeats, losing the House majority in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
Perez told party activists earlier in the day that Democrats face a “crisis of confidence” and “a crisis of relevance.”
The new chairman first entered the race upon urging from Obama and his inner circle. The former president released a statement praising both men after the vote.
“I know that Tom Perez will unite us under that banner of opportunity,” Obama said, “and lay the groundwork for a new generation of Democratic leadership for this big, bold, inclusive, dynamic America we l ove s o much.”
The son of Dominican immigrants, Perez comes to the job with a demonstrably liberal record as a civil rights attorney and backer of organized labor, but he carried the establishment label as a Maryland resident who’s spent years in the Washington orbit, working in the Justice Department and ultimately as an Obama Cabinet officer.
Former Vice President Joe Biden endorsed him; one of Obama’s closest aides, Valerie Jarrett, made calls to DNC members on Perez’s behalf as late as Friday night.