Candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee Tom Perez asserts that limited fundraising is the reason Democrats sustained dramatic losses during the 2016 election, according to an interview with Politico released Wednesday.

Perez is secretary of labor under President Barack Obama, and although he doesn’t have any campaign experience, Perez asserts that Democrats had a large fundraising problem in the 2016 election.

“We need to make sure that we’re going to every corner of the country to build a robust fundraising operation,” Perez said during the interview. “I was very impressed with how, for instance, Senator Sanders was able to attract small dollar donors …. [We need to] go to school on that because we do have a small dollar program at the moment, but I know we can do better.”

“With the input from all of our stakeholders we can figure out a way to do just that. That was a remarkable accomplishment.”

Although President-elect Donald Trump led Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the number of donations under $200, Clinton and the Democratic election machine managed to raise $1.3 billion towards the Clinton campaign alone.

Trump raised $600 million during the 2016 electoral season, and managed to win by a wide margin in the electoral college, but lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, largely fueled by California.

Perez hasn’t run for office since 2004, when he ran for member of the Montgomery County Council.

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