{"id":13190,"date":"2023-08-06T23:05:33","date_gmt":"2023-08-06T23:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13190"},"modified":"2023-08-06T23:05:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-06T23:05:33","slug":"california-is-the-popular-boy-or-girl-at-the-dance-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13190","title":{"rendered":"California Is the \u2018Popular Boy or Girl at the Dance\u2019 in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

y Jennifer Medina<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamala Harris has the home-state advantage, but the other Democratic presidential hopefuls are not ceding the state.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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At\nan auditorium here one evening this week, Atticus Tyagi, age 8, stepped onstage\nwith a canvas bag nearly as large as he is, bearing the name of his \u201cGammy\u201d \u2014\nSenator Elizabeth Warren \u2014 and calmly chose raffle tickets to determine who in\nthe audience of thousands would have a chance to ask Ms. Warren a question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last\nmonth, donors dined on salmon and kale salad while listening to former Vice\nPresident Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Brentwood. Two days later, some of the same\nguests returned to the same home to listen to a similar speech from their own\nsenator, Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms.\nHarris may be California\u2019s homegrown candidate, but the other Democratic candidates <\/a>are clearly not conceding the state as\nher turf. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nJuly, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., spoke in a San Francisco\nwarehouse, and Senator Bernie Sanders pressed the case for \u201cMedicare for all\u201d\nin Hollywood and Little Tokyo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nweek, Senator Cory Booker showed up in South Los Angeles for a discussion on\ngun violence. And this weekend, more than a dozen presidential candidates will\nspeak to the party faithful in San Francisco for a Democratic National\nCommittee meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\na deep base of wealthy donors, California has long been treated as a political\nA.T.M. In 2020 it will become something else too: an early voting state. Or\ncloser to one than it has been since 2008. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nsoon as next February, voters here can begin casting early ballots to determine\nhow the state\u2019s nearly 500 Democratic delegates \u2014 more than any other state in\nthe country \u2014 will be divvied up in the nominating contest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nprimary itself is March 3<\/a>, Super Tuesday, and because California is\nnot a winner-take-all state, campaigns are eager to compete for any number of\ndelegates from the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\nthink we love being the popular girl or boy at the dance right now,\u201d said Eric\nGarcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles who considered his own presidential bid and\nhas longstanding relationships with several candidates. Mr. Garcetti said that\ncandidates have long come to California to raise money, but not to court\nvoters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or,\nin school dance terms: \u201cHistorically, people want us to pay for the dance, but\nnobody wants to dance with us. Now, suddenly we\u2019re able to hit the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since\nMs. Harris announced her candidacy with a large rally in Oakland, her campaign\nhas put considerable effort into lining up endorsements from elected officials\nat every level up and down the state, including Gov. Gavin Newsom. She also\ncontinues to raise millions from her local supporters, holding half a dozen\nfund-raisers in the span of one July weekend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ian\nSams, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, said that it views California as a\nhuge opportunity for Ms. Harris, and a place where she does have an advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nthe campaign has also made clear that it needs to spend significant money to\ndefend that advantage. If Ms. Harris were to lose on her home turf, it would\nmost likely spell the end of her candidacy. This week, the campaign announced\nit had hired several new staff members to work in Los Angeles and Oakland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncampaign has also been focused on earning statewide endorsements, though some\nof the state\u2019s most prominent officials, including Mr. Garcetti and former Gov.\nJerry Brown, have so far not backed a single candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf\ncourse we have familiarity, respect and affection for our own senator, but we\nare too big and too diverse of a state to move with one parochial mind,\u201d Mr.\nGarcetti said in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr.\nBrown, who remains one of the most popular politicians in the state, said that\ncandidates should do more than \u201cthe obverse to the rightward tilt\u201d from\nRepublicans, no matter how angry Democratic voters may seem. Mr. Brown, who\nlost his own bid for president, declined to comment on any of the candidates\nspecifically, including Ms. Harris, whom he has known for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrump\nis not popular here, that is an understatement, but after a while, when it\u2019s\nonly attacks on Trump, that doesn\u2019t feel like there\u2019s much substance there,\u201d\nMr. Brown said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s a very thin debate right now, as I see it,\nand for many Californians, and I\u2019m sure many Americans, it\u2019s not all that\ninteresting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\nMs. Harris has consistently been one of the top candidates in several polls of\nCalifornia voters, Mr. Biden has repeatedly<\/a> surpassed her, and Mr. Sanders and Ms.\nWarren are each within a few points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials\nfrom several campaigns said they were just beginning to hire staff members in\nCalifornia, but planned to open offices in multiple regions of the state,\nacknowledging that what works in Silicon Valley, where voters skew wealthy and\nwhite, may be very different from the Central Valley, which is heavily Latino\nand more conservative. At a Warren event, a campaign staff member actively\nrecruited Spanish-speaking volunteers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\nthe Warren campaign has so far hired just one staff member to oversee the\nstate, officials say they have amassed thousands of volunteers here, and Ms.\nWarren plans to hold events in the state almost monthly. Her children and\ngrandchildren live in Los Angeles, which leads to some travel efficiency: After\nthe state Democratic convention in San Francisco last month, Ms. Warren flew\nsouth to attend her grandson\u2019s high school graduation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr.\nSanders also has a sizable infrastructure to fall back on from the 2016\nDemocratic primary, when he captured 46 percent of the vote in California. The\ncampaign recently hired a statewide coordinator who will oversee an expansive\noperation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His\nCalifornia supporters are a receptive group: Hundreds of people lined up in\nscorching afternoon heat to attend a health care town hall he held in Little\nTokyo, just east of downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll\nthe issues we wish everyone was talking about, that some other candidates are\nstarting to talk about now, he\u2019s been talking about them forever,\u201d said Alex\nPerez, a 42-year-old military veteran who lives in the San Fernando Valley and\nhad come to see Mr. Sanders speak. \u201cOur own senator, I like her, yes, but she\nis playing catch-up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr.\nPerez\u2019s attitude \u2014 appreciative of Senator Harris, but enthusiastic about other\noptions \u2014 was a sentiment that dozens of voters expressed, to varying degrees,\nduring a summer of plentiful opportunities to see candidates. They also noted\nthat they were trying to make sense of how Ms. Harris\u2019s positions had shifted\nover her 15 years in public office, and what she really believed. But mostly,\nthey were excited to get a small taste of what Iowa voters have gotten for\nyears: a chance to see the presidential hopefuls for themselves. And they did\nhave several chances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\none busy day in July, Mr. Sanders taped an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel and then\nheaded to the Montalban Theater in Hollywood, where he took the stage after the\ncrowd warmed up to a thumping D.J. set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across\ntown, Mr. Buttigieg was holding his own fund-raiser with celebrity hosts that\nincluded Ellen DeGeneres and Chelsea Handler. A day earlier, Mr. Buttigieg\nattracted a couple of hundred Bay Area supporters to an industrial section of\nSan Francisco, for a fund-raiser that featured a panel discussion on diversity\nand the tech industry. There, he received huge applause after promising to\nsolve homelessness, one of the most pressing and vexing problems in California.\nWhen he spoke of homes in South Bend selling for $40,000, he was met with\nroaring laughter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether\nCalifornia Democrats are looking for a moderate would-be peacemaker or an\nunapologetic liberal may prove to be the central question of the primary here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carolina\nRojas, 44, was eager to bring her 9-year-old daughter to Ms. Warren\u2019s event on\nWednesday in Los Angeles. It was just the second day of fourth grade for\nValentina, who stood in line for more than an hour to ask Ms. Warren about\nglobal warming and how she handled self-doubt. Ms. Rojas was leaning toward Ms.\nWarren, and newly focused on how important this election will be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve\nreally come to see that every issue I care about is connected and we really\nneed big changes,\u201d she said. \u201cEl Paso showed us you can\u2019t really tease out gun\ncontrol from immigration and from racism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representative\nHarley Rouda, a Democrat who captured a long-held Republican seat last year and\nhas become a vocal supporter of impeaching President Trump, said he was most\nfocused on a candidate who could beat Mr. Trump in swing states, and worried\nthat candidates were taking positions that would alienate voters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very important that we not go so far to the left that we lose the strength we achieved in 2018 \u2014 that was not because we made blue districts bluer, it was because we turned red districts blue,\u201d Mr. Rouda said, adding that he was unsure whether he would endorse anyone in the primary. \u201cWe did that in a place like Orange County because people want to see a pragmatic approach, not more bickering.\u201dnot more bickering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Medina is a national correspondent for the NY Times based in Los Angeles. A native of Southern California, she has covered the region for years, focusing on immigration, education and poverty. <\/em>@jennymedina<\/em><\/a> \u2022 <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

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