Tom Perez

In this March 2014 file photo, U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez talks to a Cleveland crowd about the importance of raising the minimum wage. Perez is now a candidate for Democratic National Committee chairman.

(Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Democratic National Committee will be under new management next month. And though the six-way race for chairman is largely an insiders game, whoever prevails will be responsible for charting the party's rebound in the Donald Trump era.

Ohio Democratic Party activists, who account for 11 of the 447 votes that will be cast at a late February meeting, have had a chance to vet candidates at two recent forums in Columbus.

Last month they hosted U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and state chairmen Raymond Buckley of New Hampshire and Jaime Harrison of South Carolina. On Wednesday, they heard from Sally Boynton Brown, the executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party; Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, and Tom Perez, the outgoing U.S. secretary of labor.

Ellison and Perez are seen as the top prospects.

Perez, in a telephone interview Thursday with cleveland.com, discussed his campaign and his thoughts on the incoming Trump administration. Here are some of the highlights.

He offered the obligatory flattery for Ohio Democrats. "There's a lot of energy. [Chairman] David Pepper is a great leader," Perez said. "I appreciate the fact that the party did a very good job of understanding what happened in November. Nobody has their head in the sand."

Perez sees Ohio's Appalachian region as a key target. Trump ran up the score in those areas last fall, putting once-reliably Democratic counties firmly into Republican hands. "What we learned from Ohio and elsewhere is that in too many corners of the country we weren't talking to people," he said. "I'm a big fan of data analytics, but good data analytics are no substitute for showing up and persuading people. ... We weren't in those communities. A big reason Hillary Clinton lost Ohio and elsewhere was this underperformance in Middle America."

He believes blue-collar workers, including many union members who weren't ideologically wedded to either party and gave Trump a chance, will be disappointed. Perez noted that Andy Puzder, Trump's pick to succeed him as labor secretary, has opposed minimum wage increases. "You have Donald Trump appointing folks who are hostile to the union movement," Perez said. "He talked about draining the swamp, but what he is doing is putting bigger alligators in there. So part of what we have to do better is educate people about what they stand for."

Voting rights are a key plank in his DNC bid. "We need to dramatically enhance the capacity of the Democratic Party to counteract the absolutely ill-advised and ill-conceived outrageous efforts to suppress the vote," said Perez, who proposes a "voter protection and empowerment" unit to combat restrictive election policies at the state level and register new voters.

Such issues are important to Ohio Democrats. Nina Turner, a former state senator from Cleveland and rising star among national progressives, branded Secretary of State Jon Husted as a "secretary of suppression" during her unsuccessful campaign to unseat him in 2014. Emphasizing concerns about ballot access helps Democrats further draw contrasts with rising Republican stars such as Husted, who is considering a run for Ohio governor in 2018.

'Cyber security' is another Perez priority. "We make sure this never happens again," he said, referring to email hacking -- blamed on Russian leadership -- that targeted Clinton and the DNC last year. He wants to hire a security expert who would report directly to the chairman.

But Perez dodged and talked of a double-standard when asked if the hacking, which resulted in leaks that embarrassed the Clinton campaign, helped lose the White House for Democrats.

"If the tables were turned and Hillary won," Perez said, "we'd have 10 hearings going on Capitol Hill. They'd be filing articles of impeachment. It'd be the only thing on Fox News."

Perez worries about the future of civil rights cases. While serving as an assistant U.S. attorney general, Perez was the Department of Justice pointman at the start of a federal investigation into Cleveland police use-of-force practices. The probe led to a consent decree aimed at reforms.

But a Republican administration might have less of an appetite for scrutinizing local law enforcement. And Trump's nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, testified at his confirmation hearing this week that he is skeptical about such agreements.

"I think that Cleveland has a remarkable opportunity here under the decree to move forward," Perez said. "If history is a guide, though, I fear this work will dry up."