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New Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez and Deputy Chair Keith Ellison are taking their buddy show on the road.
Starting later this month, the pair will embark on what they are calling a “Democratic Turnaround Tour” that hits a collection of states that the party lost in 2016 and where there are ongoing races. The first stops, beginning March 24, are in Detroit and Flint, Michigan — where Hillary Clinton was the first Democrat to lose since 1988.
That trip will be followed by visits to Texas — where Democrats are looking to make inroads — and to the states that will hold the two gubernatorial races in 2017, New Jersey and Virginia.
Perez and Ellison are set to announce the tour on Wednesday night, less than two weeks after the former Labor secretary won the chairmanship and named the Minnesota congressman his deputy in Atlanta.
After a four-month long campaign that devolved into a messy proxy war between the establishment wing of the party and the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, the two have gone out of their way to appear together.
It started with a joint press conference following Perez’s victory — in which they were wearing each other’s campaign pins — and continued at President Donald Trump’s first address to Congress, at which Perez was Ellison’s guest
Now, their push to unify the party is heading to some of the states most vital to the Democrats' comeback strategy.
When they are traveling, the duo will meet with local party members to talk about the importance of local organization — a key point in both of their campaigns for the chairmanship. But they will also push for Democrats to convey a positive economic message to respond to Trump, not simply an anti-Trump one like the party’s prevailing push during the 2016 campaign.
