Last week, Keith Ellison's team eagerly trotted out the endorsement of UNITE HERE, a prominent union of culinary and hospitality workers. | Getty DNC chair candidates agree to agree

The seven candidates running for Democratic National Committee chair are coming to terms with an increasingly likely scenario: This race could go all the way to the DNC's Feb. 23 winter meeting in Atlanta, when members vote on the next chair.

That realization was on stark display Monday night in Washington during the latest of six DNC forums, this one hosted by the Democracy in Color campaign. On virtually every question asked by moderator Joy-Ann Reid, the candidates were in near-perfect agreement. None needled their competitors too hard nor hinted that they were close to clinching the race. All agreed that the DNC needed to do a better job of appealing to African-American voters. The response was the same on questions regarding Black Lives Matter — the DNC needs to do a better job of working with the movement.


When Reid asked the candidates if they thought Democrats should work with President Donald Trump, all the candidates shook their heads.

"Joy that is an absolutely ridiculous question," New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said, before former Labor Secretary Tom Perez chimed in to say, "I think we should afford Donald Trump the same courtesy that Mitch McConnell afforded Barack Obama."

The rest of the candidates at the forum — Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jamie Harrison, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Idaho Democratic Party Executive Director Sally Boynton Brown, and former Fox News analyst Jehmu Greene — didn't exactly argue.

"There is not a word that anybody is saying that we do not agree with," Buckley said at another point during the forum.

The only real disagreement between the candidates was which candidate had more experience needed to be elected chair.

"We have a lot of agreement of what we've got to do here but what I have been able to do in the jobs I've been doing is make sure that we implement," Perez said.

The unanimity underscored the growing suspicion among Democrats that the race for chair is unlikely to play out until the 447 DNC members vote in Atlanta. That's in contrast to the last open race for DNC chair, in 2005, when Howard Dean outlasted his competitors to win the chairmanship. The former Vermont governor gradually thinned out a crowded field of competitors by rolling out endorsements from dozens of DNC members at a time, and picking up significant support from organized labor

This time around, union support is splintered and none of the candidates have been able to stitch together large numbers of DNC votes.

"It's because nobody has the majority of votes at this point. I've never seen a race like this before where there's just so many folks who are undecided and are just waiting and assessing and trying to figure things out," Harrison said in an interview on Monday. "I think in many folks' minds, they're trying to figure out what they want to see in the next DNC chair."

"I don't see anybody dropping out of this thing," he added.

Democratic operatives — and the candidates themselves — say it's unlikely the seven-person field will winnow dramatically before the Atlanta vote.

Monday's event in Washington was the third of six relatively agreeable DNC forums. No knockout blows have been delivered, and the underlying dynamics of the race haven't been altered.

Last week, Ellison's team eagerly trotted out the endorsement of UNITE HERE, a prominent union of culinary and hospitality workers, adding to the labor endorsements he's received from the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers, AFSCME President Lee Saunders, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. On Monday, as reported first by POLITICO, Perez announced the endorsement of BOLD PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — two CHC members, Reps. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Raul Grijalva of Arizona are backing Ellison — adding to the governors who have backed him (Colorado's John Hickenlooper and Pennsylvania's Tom Wolfe), and labor unions including the United Farm Workers.

Those divisions are why candidates are thinking there will be no presumptive chair going into Atlanta.

"It's very possible, strategically, that there may be a second-ballot stage to this thing too," Buttigieg said Thursday. The Indiana mayor added that "given the dynamics right now, it certainly seems like that's possible."

