Top candidates for Democratic National Committee chairman were furiously whipping votes Thursday, just two days before the close of a contentious four-month campaign.
As Democrats descended on Atlanta for Saturday’s vote to pick a new party leader, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Tom Perez of Maryland, the labor secretary under President Barack Obama, were smothering the 442 voting DNC members with phone calls and in-person visits.
The frontrunners, employing sophisticated whip operations, were in contact with members who had already committed to them at least once a day, and continued to aggressively court undecided voters.
“This thing is as intense as any general election campaign you can imagine,” T.J. Rooney, the former Democratic chairman in Pennsylvania, told the Washington Examiner.
Seven candidates remained in the race for DNC chairman, a closely watched contest as Democrats attempt to chart a course forward in the post-Obama era. The party has continued to struggle with how to effectively confront President Trump.
Ellison, supported by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Perez, backed by former Vice President Joe Biden, are the leading contenders, although political observers also had their eye on dark horse Mayor Pete Buttigieg of Fort Bend, Ind.
The voting is scheduled to begin Saturday morning, and will go as many rounds as it takes for a winner to garner 50 percent, plus one, of those eligible voters who cast ballots. If all 442 vote, the winning tally would be 222.
Ed Espinoza, a former DNC operative, said the most important piece of information for a competitive campaign is the “whip sheet.” On that list, a campaign tracks supporters, undecided voters and those backing rival candidates.
This close to the election, the list is updated with new information almost hourly.
Should the election go into multiple rounds, the whip operations of the leading candidates will go into overtime appealing voters in real time, tempting them to switch sides and put their candidates over the top.
“The whip sheet helps determine the pool of voters present, identify the pool of support on the floor, and to pick off any votes from people who are supporting a candidate that is not among the top two,” Espinoza said.
According to DNC rules, all candidates are considered on the first two rounds of voting, if no winner emerges. On each successive round, the candidate with the lowest tally is eliminated until there is a winner.
The DNC chairman contest long ago developed into a proxy war between the insurgent Sanders wing of the party, which is backing Ellison, and the Obama establishment wing, which is behind Perez.
Rooney said the campaigning had accelerated to the point where, even during his brief telephone interview with the Washington Examiner, his email box was filling up with appeals from the major contenders.
Rooney said the conventional wisdom pegged Perez as the odds-on favorite. But he added that Ellison had an advantage over the former labor secretary when it came to organizing, at least in Pennsylvania, allowing him to lock down certain Democrats that he wouldn’t have expected. According to the Associated Press, Democratic operatives put Perez’s support at just over 200 votes, followed by Ellison at just over 150.
“It’s tighter than a tick,” he said.
The winner will take over for interim DNC Chairman Donna Brazile. She assumed control of the party after Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., was forced to resign amid charges that she had tilted the party against Sanders, and for Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 presidential primary.
“This is a great moment for the party,” Brazile told reporters Thursday during a conference call.
