[AP] Democratic National Committee officials and a group of state party leaders are trying to resolve an increasingly ugly dispute over how the party manages and pays for the voter data used in campaigns.The saga, which spilled into open view in recent weeks, eventually will determine how extensive and useful a voter information file will be to the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020. The fight also is testing DNC Chairman Tom Perez and his promises to rebuild trust across Democrats’ national headquarters, state parties and donors across the country following a 2016 campaign that left the party fractured.
DNC officials will meet Tuesday in Washington with certain state party chairs and executive directors as the party attempts to overhaul its data operation amid widespread agreement that Democrats have been lapped by Republicans on a pillar of campaign infrastructure.
The gathering is complicated by a recent round of emails among Perez and state party chiefs, with each side effectively accusing the other of a counterproductive power grab.
"Here’s the bottom line: We all want to win," Perez told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s private session. Yet he alluded to the obvious tensions, saying "a lot of stakeholders ... have very important equities in the process."
Perez supports creation of a data trust ‐ a legal entity separate from the party itself ‐ designed for the national party, state party, Democratic candidates and the left’s special interest groups to share data in real time. Republicans already use a similar structure, and Democrats concede it was an underappreciated variable in President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory.
State party leaders say they also want sharable, real-time data. But they argue that could be accomplished through a co-operative managed through state parties and aided by a third-party vendor, TargetSmart, a company many state parties already use as a data contractor.