Buckley is the first serious candidate to quit the race, which briefly swelled to 11 candidates but is seen internally as a match between Ellison and former labor secretary Tom Perez. As of Saturday morning, the Minnesota congressman was still running ads on social media, sharing his story as an activist who knocked on doors for Democrats even before he could vote and held off the Republican tide in 2016 to help the party win GOP-held House and Senate seats.

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“The model that Ray has built in New Hampshire and his work as the President of the [Association of State Democratic Chairs] is something that we need as we rebuild all 57 state parties,” Ellison said in the joint statement. (There are 50 state parties and seven in the territories and the District of Columbia.) “When we have a successful outcome in Atlanta next week, I have asked him to lead our effort to provide the support and resources the state parties need in a new and innovative 57 state strategy.”

One of the first candidates to enter the race, Buckley — who had the most experience inside the party — became the most pointed critic of where it had failed. He repeatedly scorched Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for not doing the sort of mass voter persuasion that the New Hampshire Democrats had prioritized in their state. At the same time, he criticized moderators of some party forums for asking about hot political issues instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of running the DNC.

Buckley’s endorsement also comes after Perez’s campaign announced that 180 of the 447 voting DNC members had gotten behind him — a figure Ellison’s camp disputed, predicting a backlash from undecided members. NBC News first reported that Buckley and Ellison were talking about an endorsement, although Saturday’s joint statement makes it clear that Buckley will take no official role as part of the deal.

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