Tom Perez elected as new DNC Chairperson

Perez, who was labor secretary under Barack Obama, was chosen over liberal Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison at the DNC meeting in Atlanta.

To help tell us more about Tom Perez and what direction he may lead the Democratic Party, we’re joined by Takeaway Washington Correspondent Todd Zwillich.

Responses to Perez’s tweet suggest that the party might not be almost as united as he hopes, despite his naming Ellison as “Deputy Chair” of the DNC and Ellison’s plea for his supporters to back Perez.

“Our Democratic unity is Donald Trump’s worst nightmare”, Perez said. Supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who had lobbied hard for Ellison, anxious that the party was alienating the growing “resistance” that has organized against President Trump.

He said that while the 20 January inauguration of Mr Trump “was an undeniably important day”, the mass protests that followed were “far more important for America”.

The DNC chair’s role was left vacant after the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz following last year’s embarrassing WikiLeaks revelations.

The battle over electing new Democratic Party officials has revealed the growing populist energy within the party, which could fuel an electoral turnaround but also risks turning against the establishment.

Nevertheless he acknowledged that the Democratic party was “suffering from a crisis of confidence, a crisis of relevance”.

Every election, irrespective of who wins or loses, has its ramifications.

The president did not elaborate on his statement or substantiate it with evidence.

“I come to you with an unrelenting optimism in our capacity to move forward”, Perez said, in his victory speech. “We need an organizer who is going to bring people out and turn this party around”.

On CNN Sunday morning, Perez brushed aside that tweet from Trump claiming the vote was rigged, saying that he and Ellison “got a good kick out of that”. The next party leader will be charged with rebuilding state organizations and get-out-the-vote efforts in states and raising hundreds of millions of dollars in hopes of unseating Republicans up and down ballots in 2018 and promoting a Democratic presidential nominee who could win in 2020. This hour On Point, choosing a new Democratic National Committee chief.

But, it’s important to note that Perez and Ellison were largely complimentary of each other in most public appearances, and stayed away from anything petty.

Ellison, for his part, tried to tamp down the barrage of phone calls on his behalf, which one state party chair unfavorably described as “anarchy”.

Gabriel Debenedetti, national political reporter for POLITICO, covering the DNC race and the Democratic Party.

In another act of resistance against party progressives, the DNC also shot down calls to revive a ban on corporate donations and bar corporate federal lobbyists from serving as at-large members of the body.