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SAN FRANCISCO — A bevy of presidential contenders competed to land the toughest blows against President Trump as they descended on California’s state Democratic convention this weekend, giving Golden State delegates a taste of the political attention typically lavished on early states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
California’s earlier primary in the 2020 election has made this convention prime campaigning territory, with 14 White House hopefuls — the largest concentration of candidates in one place so far this year — converging on San Francisco. Former Vice President Joe Biden was the only major candidate to skip the event.
The contenders rushed around the halls of Moscone Convention Center in a scramble to meet the highest possible number of delegates, and they were followed by throngs of chanting supporters waving signs and jostling for selfies.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, making his exit from one caucus meeting, left a grinning group of high schoolers in his wake.
“I touched him!” exclaimed Sunsaara Shergill, a 16-year-old Sanders devotee from Elk Grove. “It’s amazing. I felt that socialism power.”
Each presidential wannabe got seven minutes in the spotlight, and they took varying approaches to standing out on the stage of the largest state Democratic party in the country. And two days of speeches laid bare some fault lines among the party, with debates over issues like impeaching Trump distracting from the paeans to party unity.
Home-state Sen. Kamala Harris delivered some of her sharpest attacks on Trump, accusing him of “a pathological failure in leadership” and describing the 2020 election as “a fight for truth itself.” Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke flipped between English and Spanish, arguing that he could sell progressive values in red states.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who drew 6,500 people to an Oakland town hall Friday, got the loudest applause Saturday, as she blasted Trump and offered some oblique criticism of Biden.
“Some say if we all just calm down the Republicans will come to their senses, but our country is in a time of crisis — the time for small ideas is over,” Warren said, referring to a comment made by the former vice president last month.
The Golden State’s convention has always been an attractive destination for Democratic presidential hopefuls. In April 2007, seven of the eight candidates — including then-senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — walked the halls at the party confab in San Diego. (That time, too, Biden was the only candidate to skip it.)
But this year’s stampede of candidates is on a completely different scale, in part a sign of California’s newfound significance in next year’s primary race. Golden State voters will go to the polls March 3, along with other Super Tuesday states and just after the traditional four early states. Mail-in ballots will be sent out Feb. 3, the same day Iowans caucus. And with nearly 500 delegates up for grabs, California will be the largest prize in the country.
“California is now a super-super-super Tuesday state,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. “You’re going to have more say than ever before.”
While polls have shown Biden and Sanders in the lead, with Harris in third place, the state’s delegates will be awarded proportionally to candidates based on Congressional district — so even those who make a mark only in certain corners of the state have a chance to pick up some delegates.
The importance of appealing to the state’s diverse constituencies was apparent, as several candidates made the rounds of the influential party caucuses Friday night. Klobuchar warned of the dangers of climate change at the environmental caucus, endorsed a path to citizenship at the Latino caucus and talked up tribal sovereignty at the Native American caucus. Each time, she introduced herself as “the one who announced my candidacy in the middle of a blizzard with eight inches of snow on my head.”
At a Friday night party hosted by an LGBT rights group and emceed by a drag queen, East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell vowed to end President Trump’s ban on transgender service members and sign legislation banning discrimination by sexual orientation or gender identity if elected.
“The work that we did in 2018 — that was just the beginning,” he said, flanked by columns of rainbow balloons. “We’re just getting started.”
Convention attendees relished getting a chance to meet their favorite candidates, or even just see them in the flesh.
“It’s nice to get a sense of these candidates that isn’t filtered through TV or social media,” said Eli Beckman, 26, a City Council member in Corte Madera and a first-time delegate. “Usually by the time we get a chance to weigh in, things have been all sewn up.”
Ari Ruiz, 29, a Los Angeles delegate who rushed up to Klobuchar to snap a selfie, said he liked the senator because “She’s like a mom — she’s a realist.”
“She’s not going to give you the Cadillac, she knows you have to start with a smaller car first,” Ruiz said.
While delegates insisted that they were focused on defeating Trump and would come together no matter the nominee, the party’s divisions couldn’t be avoided. After Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee — the California co-chair of Harris’ presidential campaign — gave a speech supporting the California senator at the party’s progressive caucus, she was met with a chant of “Ber-nie, Ber-nie!” from delegates in the room.
Some attendees heckled state leaders, urging them to sign on to liberal priorities like single-payer health care or removing Trump from office. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke at the convention Saturday morning, delegates on the floor shouted “Impeach, impeach!” — unhappy with the hometown congresswoman’s resistance to starting impeachment hearings.
“President Trump will be held accountable for his actions — in the Congress, in the courts and in the court of public opinion,” Pelosi said, waving off the chants. “We will defend our democracy.”
Harris, in her speech, said, “We need to start impeachment proceedings now,” while O’Rourke didn’t mention the issue.
The convention was also a showcase for how California’s prominence in the primary could shape the presidential campaign, with candidates pressed by delegates to appeal to a more progressive, anti-Trump and diverse electorate than some of the traditional early states.
Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper was met with sustained boos in the convention hall as he declared “socialism is not the answer,” arguing that a more moderate approach was needed to beat Trump, a sign of what Biden might have experienced from the left-leaning delegates if he had showed up.
Instead, Biden is headed to Columbus, Ohio, to headline a dinner for an LGBT rights group on Saturday night. The acting state party chair, Alex Gallardo-Rooker, said Friday that Biden had called her to promise that despite his absence at the convention, “he will be here many times” in months to come.
“He wanted to be here but he is being pulled all over the place,” Gallardo-Rooker said, explaining that Biden had previously committed to speaking at the Ohio dinner.
Meanwhile, delegates are also focused on the competitive race for the state party chair, who will help shape Democrats’ strategy in the Golden State leading into 2020.
Richmond activist Kimberly Ellis, Los Angeles labor leader Rusty Hicks and Santa Barbara party official Daraka Larimore-Hall are considered the top candidates facing off to replace former chair Eric Bauman, who resigned last year amid sexual harassment allegations. Ellis narrowly lost the last chair’s race to Bauman in 2017. Delegates will vote Saturday with a run-off likely Sunday morning.
Julia Sulek contributed to this report.
