Washington Post: DNC chairman Tom Perez: ‘We’re fighting for our democracy’

By Jonathan Capehart

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“We can win everywhere if we organize everywhere.”

When Tom Perez was elected chair of the Democratic National Committee 17 months ago, there were doubts that he would be able to say something so confident. The bitter infighting between supporters of Hillary Clinton, the party’s presidential nominee, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose followers charged the system was rigged against him, was bad enough. Clinton’s stunning loss to President Trump only compounded the demoralization among Democrats.

But that was then.

Successful elections of Democratic governors in Virginia and New Jersey, and a Democratic senator in Alabama for the first time in more than 30 years, have validated Perez’s priorities since he took over the party in February 2017. “We’ve made real progress. Forty-three elections that we’ve helped to flip from red to blue in places all over the country. We’ve become a 57-state and -territory party again. We’re competing everywhere,” Perez told me in the latest episode of “Cape Up.” “Virginia and New Jersey taught us that we could win again, and Alabama taught us that we could win everywhere.”

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