The consensus among Democratic officials is that former Labor Secretary Tom Perez is the slight favorite to win election as the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Perez himself claims that he is far and away the front-runner — and that he is less than 50 votes from victory.

But a POLITICO email survey of the 447 DNC voting members and follow-up interviews with close to a dozen national and state Democratic leaders finds a considerably closer race, with Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison holding a narrow advantage in a contest that seems likely to last through several rounds of balloting before determining a winner.


"Based on the constant calls from surrogates on both sides, I would say that it is close," said Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Webber, one of the remaining undecided state chairs. "Those two front-runners and other candidates are aggressively calling around to get votes. My sense is that almost everyone who has voted is going to have an opportunity to talk to both the two front-runners and, myself included, I think everybody really likes both of them. Most of the discussion I've heard is it's really people voting for one of them but not against everybody."

The email survey reveals what is essentially a two-candidate race in the final days before the vote Saturday in Atlanta. Ellison, a Bernie Sanders supporter during the 2016 Democratic primary, holds a modest lead over Perez, with the rest of the field lagging far behind, according to the 176 DNC members who responded. After Ellison and Perez, the next largest group of respondents is undecided.

Perez's team announced last week he had secured 180 pledged votes, just 44 votes short of the amount needed to win a majority. In response, Ellison accused his rival of trying to "exert pressure” on DNC members. But the Minnesota congressman has not released his own vote count, making it unclear how much pledged support he has.

Still, Ellison boasts a long roster of prominent supporters, including major labor groups, and recently added a key late endorsement from New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley, a well-known party veteran who currently leads the Association of State Democratic Chairs.

Labor Secretary Tom Perez is considered a slight favorite to win election as the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee among party officials. | Getty

From the beginning of the race, Ellison has sought to position himself as the unity candidate. He quickly picked up support from top Democrats in both the progressive and establishment-oriented wings of the party. Perez, who joined the race after it was well underway, has since won some of the most coveted endorsements in the race, including from former Vice President Joe Biden and former Attorney General Eric Holder.

"I think Tom's campaign — I think they're pretty confident at the end of the day, but they believed that this was always going to go to Atlanta," said Maria Cardona, a voting member backing Perez. "Tom has done a pretty good job of cementing a top-notch campaign given the timing of when he got in, but he remains very aware that this is not his for the taking, and I think that's smart of him to think that."

Although he trailed far behind Ellison and Perez in the survey, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has gotten traction recently in his bid for the chairmanship. On Wednesday, Howard Dean, a former Vermont governor and DNC chairman, announced his support for Buttigieg, joining several other former DNC chairs — including Steve Grossman, Ed Rendell and Joe Andrews — who are backing the 35-year-old mayor.

“Of the many challenges we face, the most important key to our future success is to cement the loyalties of the age group that has voted for us in the greatest numbers in every presidential election since 2008. They vote Democratic, but they do not consider themselves Democrats,” Dean wrote in a statement sent to DNC members. “If we fail to bring this generation into electoral politics now, the DNC will become irrelevant. This is our last chance. ... Our future is now if Pete is our chair.”

Between Buttigieg and the other top contenders — South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison, Idaho Democratic Party Executive Director Sally Boynton Brown, and Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene — many DNC members expect the vote will go beyond a first ballot Saturday.

"They believed this was always going to go to Atlanta, that he didn't have it locked up in the first round by any means," Cardona said of Perez's campaign.

The email survey suggests that if the chairmanship race continues through several rounds of balloting, Perez might be in a better position to prevail than Ellison. While Ellison’s supporters had few qualms about backing Perez as their second choice, the same didn’t hold true for Perez backers — few who ranked Perez as their first-choice candidate said they would back Ellison as their second choice.

"I'm surprised that Perez supporters are not picking Ellison as a second choice," said Washington state Democratic Party Chairwoman Tina Podlodowski, an Ellison supporter. "I wonder if it's this desire for less dramatic change."

It might also be a sign of lingering resentment from the Democratic presidential primary. Ellison was an early and prominent Sanders surrogate. While he eventually came onboard and worked hard for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, there is still some bad blood among establishment Democrats who believe the Vermont senator’s tenacious primary challenge damaged Clinton’s chances in the general election.