Reps. Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna are good friends and two of the most progressive Bay Area House members. But Khanna definitely had the easier time of it when they advocated for rival presidential candidates before the California Democratic Party’s influential progressive caucus Friday night.

Lee, D-Oakland, said at the state party’s convention in San Francisco that she’s known California Sen. Kamala Harris for a long time as a colleague and a friend and was proud that she was the second African American woman ever elected to the Senate.

“We need candidates who are direct opposites of what we have in the White House right now,” Lee said. “You can see her take on this administration in a way that tells me that she’s going to prosecute the heck out of Donald Trump.”

It was a tough crowd, however — the progressive caucus is heavily tilted toward independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose campaign is co-chaired by Khanna, a Fremont Democrat. Even after Lee spoke on behalf of Harris, many of those in the crowd chanted, “Ber-nie! Ber-nie! Ber-nie!”

Harris isn’t even in the second choice of many progressives in the caucus, said the group’s outgoing Northern California vice chair, Mark Van Landuyt. Khanna was at the caucus and signed its list of priorities on the senator’s behalf. Lee declined to do so for Harris, saying she had to check with the campaign first.

“Most here are for Bernie, then after that it’s Elizabeth Warren,” Van Landuyt said. “They have faith that he will do the things he’s promising. We’ve been burned by politicians who promised but haven’t delivered.”

While Harris was attending a private fundraiser Friday at the home of billionaires Ann and Gordon Getty in San Francisco, Sanders was stopping by the Latino and labor caucuses at the convention.

“He’s doing his homework,” Khanna said in an interview.

It was a raucous scene at the Latino caucus. When Sanders arrived to give a short speech, the crowd mobbed him for photos.

The moderator begged caucus-goers to sit down, saying, “If we’re all trying to get selfies, we’ll never get through this.”

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Khanna said the divisions between Sanders supporters and more centrist Democrats in California are “overblown.”

Sanders’ support is based more on “reform versus status quo” than it is on an ideological division within the Democratic Party, Khanna said.

“What motivates Berniecrats is a sense that the system isn’t working — that we have to change things,” Khanna said. “And he represents fundamental change.”

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Alexei Koseff contributed to this report.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli