campaigning with labor organizations he put out two flyers, one with just him and there was no justin fairfax on the flyer with him. and people already got upset about that. portions of the black community felt like why are you running two separate campaigns and trying to put zabs between yourself and justin fairfax? this is somebody ises who already showed us who he was on the campaign trail and i m sure i think, ben you can appreciate this you remember he was running against tom periello. there s somebody on the opposition team who never work again. how did ed gillespie who was running a campaign based on racistropes, he didn t find it? this is a time bomb this candidate built himself. you hire people to do research on you, but there is no replacement for just being honest with your team that you made a mistake, that you ve got to get in front of.
that would be a big surprise to people. all right. steve kornacki, we re going to keep our eyes on that. we will keep you posted and have you back. for more on the high states of tonight s primary elections and the democratic strategy going forward, i m joined by chairman of the national democratic the democratic national committee, tom perez. you know, there s two schools of thought, tom. one is you want to clear the field for your preferred candidate. it s better to not have them waste money on a contentious primary. we ve seen the republicans do that effectively with rick scott down in florida. and the other theory is that the energy and activism that you get from contested primaries is good for the eventual nominee. what s your side in that? i think about virginia, when i listen to your question. there was a spirited primary last year in virginia between tom periello and ralph northam. two really good democrats who debated the issues, they stayed on the high ground, it was re
preparation of a loss in virginia. and almost starting down the pathway of the analysis of what did we do wrong? there s got to be a lot of exuberance and relief in that room. there really is, chris. i ll tell you, i talked to tom periello, the democrat who lost to ralph northam in the primary. ease been active campaigning not just for northam but for all the house of delegate candidates you mentioned. he said, democrats have been talking about how they need to get active in these off-year elections and these midterm elections in a serious way since at least 2010. he was hopeful this morning that they would start to see it tonight. and it looks like they have. you mentioned those delegate races. one of the theories here is that there s almost a reverse coattails effect here, where democrats have not competed in a lot of these places in virginia historically. now they ve got folks on the ballot. so even if you ve got a house of delegates candidate who may not do great, if they ve got
their conscience, we ll never know for sure. but they are at severe risk as a result of the republican drive to advance an unpopular piece of legislation. we ve already got our first campaign commercial. tom periello, running for govern in virginia in a democratic primary. roll the film and we ll make an observation. republican leaders are trying to do this to affordable health care. in congress i voted for obamacare because it was wrong that 1 million virginianss weren t covered while insurance companies held all the power. now i m running for governor because it s wrong that most virginia incomes haven t gone up in 20 years. together we can stop donald trump, raise wages and build an economy that works for everyone. and we ll make sure this never happens in virginia. hey david, the question i have about the ad, was that a green screen, and if not, did he nail it in one take? and how many ambulances did they