Perez claims to be 44 votes away from victory in DNC race

By David Weigel February 14 at 6:10 PM

Tom Perez’s campaign for chair of the Democratic National Committee claimed to hit a milestone today, telling supporters that Louisiana politician and DNC member Arlanda Williams had become his 180th vote — putting the former labor secretary just 44 away from the winning number.

The campaign of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Perez’s closest competitor, pushed back, insisting that the 180 number was unverified and designed to befuddle the undecided DNC members.

“With many strong candidates in the race, we believe that DNC members deserve the respect to make this hard decision without unverifiable public whip counts designed to put a finger on the scale,” said Ellison spokesman Jamie Long. “We have by far the most public support in the race, including dozens of state party chairs and vice chairs, five complete state delegations, and numerous elected officials who serve on the DNC. Most of our supporters prefer to remain private and we respect that. We will not be releasing our full whip count, but we are on track to win next week and we are confident that we will.”

Just 447 DNC members will vote to chose the party’s chairman, vice chairs, treasury and secretary at a Feb. 25 vote in Atlanta. While the front-runners have released scores of high-profile endorsements, including former vice president Joe Biden for Perez and the national AFL-CIO for Ellison, most voting DNC members have kept their preferences off the record.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/02/14/perez-claims-to-be-44-votes-away-from-victory-in-dnc-race/?utm_term=.814c38f8ca08&wpisrc=nl_politics&wpmm=1