Warren Takes on Harris as Democrats Vie for an Edge in California
2020 Democratic Hopefuls Flock to California Seeking Early Edge
(Bloomberg) -- Most of the Democratic presidential hopefuls are converging on San Francisco this weekend in the biggest single gathering of the candidates so far this year, all bidding for advantage in a state that’s set to play a pivotal role early in the 2020 race.
Fourteen of the 23 candidates in the race are planning to attend the three-day California Democratic Party convention that begins Friday. Most of those at the top of the field plan to be there, including home-state Senator Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren. The notable exception is Joe Biden, who instead will be delivering an address at a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser Saturday in Ohio.
The candidates will be making rapid-fire pitches to California’s top elected and party officials and putting themselves in front of voters in the nation’s most populous state. Perhaps as important, they also have a chance to reach the activists who will be the backbone of any campaign in a massive and crucial primary battleground.
“The delegates who are attending are activists, the kind of people who went to Orange County and the Central Valley to help us make gains in Congress in the midterm election,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, who chairs the California Democratic congressional delegation. The convention is a chance for the presidential candidates to reach “an army of volunteers.”
Many of the candidates will also appear at a policy forum for MoveOn, the progressive advocacy organization, that will be held on Saturday in San Francisco.
California is the biggest single prize in the nomination race and it’s taken on added importance in 2020. The state moved its primary back into the Super Tuesday round of voting, joining at least 13 other states on March 3 after votes in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
Mail-In Voting
Mail-in voting in California is set to begin Feb. 3 -- the same day as the Iowa caucuses that officially kick off the nomination race. Adoption of early voting is huge in the state, with 57.8% of the vote cast through mail-in ballots in the 2016 presidential election and 65.3% in the 2018 midterms.
The possibility of a surge in early California votes, which won’t be tallied until the primary, dangles some hope for candidates seeking to keep their campaigns alive even if they have a poor showing in the four earlier states.
“People are picking one favorite, two favorites, three favorites,” said California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat who is supporting Harris. “It’s not a situation where you’re for one candidate and against everybody else.”
The state sends a total 495 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. With proportional allocation, any candidate who can get at least 15% of the vote in a congressional district take a piece of the pie.
“It’s a game-changer,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. She said early voting in states like California will “dramatically” alter how the candidates run their 2020 primary campaigns.
The state’s prominence in 2020 takes on a special significance for Harris. A win in her home state could vault her into front-runner status and a poor showing could deal a devastating blow.
Harris’ Endorsements
Harris, who launched her candidacy at a rally in her hometown of Oakland in late January, is moving to lock up support in the state. Her campaign announced endorsements Thursday from 33 members of the California Assembly, including Speaker Anthony Rendon, who called Harris, a former state attorney general, “the strongest in this field to stand up to Donald Trump.”
She faces some home-state competition from U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell of Northern California an ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who has been active in House investigations of Trump, but isn’t yet registering in 2020 primary polls.
Other major Democratic candidates are paying special attention to California.
Warren, for instance, made a splash in San Francisco this week by funding a billboard in the heart of the city’s technology corridor calling for the breakup of companies such as Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Warren, who will speak at the convention on Saturday, also campaigned in Southern California in February to pitch her wealth tax and universal child-care plan.
Just weeks after announcing his 2020 candidacy, Sanders visited California in March to rally thousands of voters in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In an email to supporters, he said “California’s role in a primary has always been important — it’s a lot of delegates — but perhaps never more than in this election.”
No Waiting
“If candidates want to compete in California, they cannot wait until the final week, since much of the vote will already be in the box. The number of delegates at stake means that serious candidates cannot ignore California,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College near Los Angeles.
From Hollywood to Silicon Valley, California is a cash cow for Democratic candidates.
“If you want to do Democratic stargazing, just hang out at California airports. Democrats have to come here, both for the dollars and the delegates. The sheer size of the field means the state will see an extraordinary amount of politicking, especially for the middle of an odd-numbered year,” Pitney said.
Pelosi, whose district is in San Francisco and who will be among those speaking at the convention, said connecting with voters on an emotional level is essential, especially with so many candidates.
“We’ve had great candidates, who had all the vision, all the knowledge and judgment, all the strategic thinking but not necessarily always” gut-level appeal, she said at an appearance Wednesday in San Francisco. “Look out for the emotional connection in addition to the rest of it.”
Alexandra Gallardo-Rooker, acting chair of the California Democratic Party, said her members are keenly focused on fielding a nominee who can defeat Trump and will be listening at the convention for candidates to explain how they plan to accomplish that.
“This is the largest Democratic gathering outside of the Democratic National Convention -- 5,000-plus people,” said Gallardo-Rooker, the first Latina to chair a state party in California. “I’m sure the candidates will talk about their key issues, but I think the most important thing is for them to tell the delegates how they’re going to beat Trump.”
--With assistance from Romy Varghese.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jeffrey Taylor in San Francisco at jtaylor48@bloomberg.net;Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, John Harney
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