Joe Biden's announcement of support for Tom Perez has energized the race for Democratic National Committee chair. | Getty Biden endorsement wakes up DNC chair race

He's no longer in office, but former Vice President Joe Biden still managed to put a jolt into the race for Democratic National Committee chair this week.

After a few static weeks, the race suddenly came alive again after Biden formally endorsed fellow Obama administration alumnus and former Labor Secretary Tom Perez on Wednesday, publicly confirming the tacit support top Obama administration officials had given to Perez.


Biden's move, in turn, generated a burst of activity by Perez's rivals, designed to counter the impression that Perez was gaining momentum. Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of Rep. Keith Ellison's top backers in the DNC race, released a statement stressing the importance of supporting the Minnesota congressman. On Thursday, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg rolled out a big name of his own: he unveiled the support of former DNC Chairman Steve Grossman. A day later, Ellison's team released their own endorsement from a former vice president: Walter Mondale.

"It certainly ratcheted up. Suddenly, the emails started again. It ratcheted up the focus and I think the energy on both sides perhaps," said Maine Democratic Party Chairman Phil Bartlett, who is undecided in the DNC race.

That was on display Saturday afternoon during the third of four regional forums, this one in Detroit at Wayne State University, sponsored by the DNC. Nine candidates were on stage: Perez, Ellison, Buttigieg, South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison, Idaho Democratic Party executive director Sally Boynton Brown, New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley, Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene and Democrats Sam Ronan and Peter Peckarsky. Peckarsky and Ronan are two recent additions to the DNC chair candidate field.

No candidate mentioned the Biden endorsement directly, but each one put an emphasis on their qualifications and endorsements.

"When it comes to winning elections, no one comes close," New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Ray Buckley said while ticking off the elections he helped win in his state. "If you want to win elections, you hire the guy who's won elections."

Ellison pointed out that he had been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, Rep. John Lewis and other major labor groups in his bid for DNC chair.

"Let me tell you, I've got 650,000 people to sign a petition in support of me being DNC chair. That's grass-root support," Ellison said.

At another point during the forum, Buttigieg said "winning elections is my bread and butter" and then argued that he didn't belong to any "faction" of the Democratic Party.

"If we're saying that we don't want to devolve into factions, put in someone who doesn't belong to any faction of the party," Buttigieg said.

Biden's announcement didn't come as a total surprise — Obama and his former White House team had been quietly supportive of Perez's candidacy. But there was a widely held expectation that neither the former president nor his vice president would directly weigh in on the race, in part to prevent fueling the perception that the DNC chair race was a proxy battle between the pro-Sanders wing of the Democratic Party and the establishment-oriented wing associated with Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Now, say some Democrats, that narrative has returned to center stage,

"I do think it's appearing to get more and more Keith-Ellison-and-Perez in terms of the numbers and where the numbers are going," DNC member Cliff Moone said Friday.

Perez has been leveraging his support from former Obama administration Cabinet secretaries like former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, while Ellison has been touting his backing from Sanders and other liberal favorites.

"I think it really comes down to Perez and Ellison, and right now they're trying to [show] who's is bigger," said Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, noting that Sanders had been "leaning on us pretty hard in Vermont to support Ellison."

But even Biden's signal hasn't been enough for some of the remaining DNC members to declare for a candidate yet.

"I'm leaning one way, but I haven't settled on one candidate," Condos said.

It's unclear how much Biden, or any other single endorsement, matters in a contest that will be decided not by the party rank and file, but by 447 members of the national party committee — many of whom are motivated by more parochial concerns.

"From my personal perspective, the endorsements of any kind don't matter very much," Bartlett said, adding that the real question is "How are these candidates going to make sure that we succeed, and what're we going to do to make sure that there's a true 50-state strategy?"

"I think the idea of pitting Bernie supporters against another group, the Hillary supporters or the Obama coalition, isn't very helpful. Whoever we elect needs to be bringing everybody to the table and being committed to finding a way that everyone has a role to play in the party," he said.

Biden's stature as a much-loved elder statesman still counts for something, said Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Bobby Moak.

"He's the vice president of the United States, held in high esteem among Democrats," Moak said. "I bet you all the other candidates that are running wish they had the damn Biden endorsement. It doesn't hurt ya either. "