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By Jonathan Allen
WASHINGTON – As she quickly begins building a behemoth in her home country, California Senator Kamala Harris unveils what appears to be a bold strategy to strike a mortal blow to her rivals during the war. Democratic nomination for the presidential election next March.
It relies on its geographic border at home, its perceived demographic advantage in the South and a primary calendar that brings them closer on March 3 – known as "Super Tuesday" because that's the date to which the most delegates to the party convention are playing in the primaries across the country.
Californian voters alone will send more than 400 delegates to the convention, close to double Texas, second in the standings, and Harris, who is one of the two African-American race candidates, will likely have chance to consolidate the black electorate of the southern states. vote on Super Tuesday, including Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.
In 2008 and 2016, respectively, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fueled their appointments with massive attacks from delegates in heavily African-American South states where black voters formed a block behind the winning candidate. Harris would like to repeat these feats – a bigger challenge, of course, in a multi-candidate race that also includes Senator Cory Booker, D-N.J., Who's Black.
But for Harris, the key is to make California – where it is notoriously expensive and difficult to run statewide campaigns – a maelstrom of time and money lost for all others. And as she travels the first states with the other Democrats, her campaign began the work of organizing an operation in her country.
"It takes a long track to build and run here," said Buffy Wicks, a member of the state House of Representatives who led the winning winning campaigns of Obama and Clinton in California. Wicks is a secret weapon for Harris: an elected one who has endorsed the senator but also brings to the campaign an unparalleled experience in the victory at the contested presidential primaries in the state.
Harris has already recruited three-quarters of Democrats in the state Senate – whose districts are larger than those of US House members – and co-chairs of the campaign, Governor Gavin Newsom, representative Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Dolores Huerta, an iconic union leader.
And while the endorsements are only very heavy, each of these three has deep ties to various elements of the foundations of donors and state activists, including African Americans, Latinos, progressive and organized workers. This could prove useful in a state facing unique organizational challenges for presidential candidates, who must simultaneously run campaigns across the country.
According to Wicks, in small states, campaigns usually rely on paid staff to strengthen their operations. California is too big for that. Instead, she said, the trick is to call on a network of "lay activists" to help organize the state, many of whom have worked to elect Harris as attorney general and Senator.
It is not uncommon for a presidential candidate to first obtain support in his garden. Senator Bernie Sanders received the approval of Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Peter Welch – his only two colleagues on the Vermont congressional delegation – Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Managed a coup with Massachusetts Democrats Wanted Downstream Representative Joe Kennedy and Senator Cory Booker, DN.J, have announced their local presence with authority in the deployment of a full set of 13 congressional delegation signatures. from the Garden State Thursday.
But California, because of its size and timing on the main calendar, is the biggest prize to win for its home country.
The ballots are sent to voters on February 3, the same day as the Iowa caucuses, which means that candidates can hardly afford to ignore California even though most of the ballots are in the ballot box. among them strive to make the most of a strong performance in the state of Hawkeye.
While Californian and Texan results are compiled on March 3 – and political insiders expect a war between Harris and former Texas Congressman Beto O 'Rourke, who has not yet announced his candidacy, Latino voters in these states – it is likely that the results In heavily African-American states, we will already know the East.
If Harris succeeded in replicating Obama and Clinton's success in galvanizing black voters in the southern states, she would emerge from those primaries with a huge block of delegates. It remains a big "if" – especially with Booker in the race – but even a solid performance that does not achieve a total victory would put it well as national attention turns to Texas and California that night .
For Democrats, delegates are divided in part based on the percentage of votes that each candidate gets in the entire state and partly on the percentage that each candidate gets in each of the congressional districts. A state – provided that candidates who fail to 15% do not receive delegates and have their share of the vote split among those who have achieved better results. In California, there are 53 districts of houses.
All this can create a major advantage for a candidate who already has support in every district of the state or the money needed to advertise and organize for a long time. period. And history shows that it is difficult to catch a candidate who creates a significant delegation leader role.
This will be the first of three major issues that her campaign faces: before the results indicate whether she can become the favorite of most African-American voters, before it is clear whether she can execute her California strategy , comes the challenge of: done well enough early enough to be considered the best candidate as the race returns to his home country.
In other words, for any demographic advantage or advantage of the country of origin comes into play, she will have to get to Super Tuesday in good shape. If she behaved badly in the first states or if she could not get the kind of money she needed to play Super Tuesday effectively, the rest could be questionable.
Tad Devine, an experienced Democratic strategist who was one of the leading advisers to Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign, said that party voters were particularly concerned about beating President Donald Trump and that they would start judging well before the end of the California one – month vote.
"If you want to be successful in California, you have to start succeeding in Iowa and New Hampshire," he said.
Between the first statements of politicians with their own operations in the state and the fact that his campaign management team – Juan Rodriguez, Sean Clegg and Averell "Ace" Smith – led several of the most successful democratic campaigns in California in recent years, Harris may have the luxury of holding a device in the state of gold while she personally spends time in other states.
"You have to do both," said Harris Communications Director Lily Adams. "It is important to present oneself in the first states." But, noted Adams, "you can not start too early" in California.
Of course, the big unknown is whether the California Democrats will flock to their original senator, favor one of the other choices or be sufficiently dissociated to prevent any candidate from doing the same thing. State a treasure of delegates.
Tomorrow, Kristen Orthman, communications director of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said in an email: "We are in Los Angeles today for an organizational event. already that? "
Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, former US Congressional Secretary and a member of the US Democratic Congress who did not endorse the presidential primary, said it was smart for Harris to choose a diverse group of co-chairs. campaign that collectively have deep links with various activist communities.
Foreigners will be at a disadvantage if they wait, said Solis.
"You can not just parachute here," she said.
A big Californian play makes sense for Harris for another reason: even if his campaign was taking place elsewhere, a victory could give him enough delegates to influence if there were no winner at the end of the season. primary democrats.
Devine, who had delegates for Jimmy Carter in 1980, said the way in which candidates approach California could be one of the most determining factors for the outcome of the fight for the nomination.
"This California decision will be one of those decisive decisions in the campaign," he said.
Harris is counting on her.
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