While the Democratic presidential field is still taking shape, the lack of an in-state competitor plays to Sen. Kamala Harris’ advantage. | Denis Poroy/AP Photo 2020 ELECTIONS California’s move to Super Tuesday hands Harris a big edge in 2020 ‘Our strategy runs straight through California,’ says a top adviser. But a subpar performance in her home state could also sink Harris’ candidacy.

Kamala Harris is building a wall around California.

The Democratic senator has been activating her forces on the home front since launching her White House bid last month — cornering some of the state’s most prolific donors, locking down big endorsements and homing in on a statewide blueprint to rack up early delegates.


California’s Super Tuesday primary is foundational to Harris’ plans to win the nomination. Her home-state advantage is an enormous asset, holding the promise of a huge haul of delegates early in the nomination fight. At the same time, a poor performance there could end her bid.

Well aware there’s no guarantee of success, Harris and her team of longtime operatives there started working the state long before many of her 2020 Democratic rivals arrived for their first fundraisers and retail campaign stops.

Harris has already held seven fundraisers in the Golden State, lined up endorsements from Gov. Gavin Newsom plus dozens of state legislators and congressional members, and brought on a top delegate expert and senior strategist with deep ties to powerful organized labor groups in the state. Harris’ strength in her past campaigns of running up her vote counts in the bluest regions — such as the Bay Area congressional districts of Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Lee — could give the freshman senator a significant edge over her competitors.

“Our strategy runs straight through California, and we plan to aggressively defend our home state turf from donors to political leadership to superdelegates to organizations and their underlying memberships,” Sean Clegg, a senior strategist to Harris, told POLITICO. “We believe the early primary, early voting, and the cost of communicating will make it virtually impossible for all but the top two or three candidates to play in the state in a meaningful way.”

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Still, Harris has a long way to go to lock down the state, and other Democratic hopefuls will undoubtedly put up a fight. Home-state ties and name ID at the start of the campaign can be a big boost, but may only carry a candidate so far. In 2016, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio dropped out of the Republican primary after losing his state to Donald Trump.

There’s also plenty of time for others to catch fire in California, and Harris will need to notch strong performances before the race moves to Super Tuesday.

Some of Harris’ rivals or would-be rivals are trying to make inroads. Already, advisers to at least six campaigns or prospective candidates are talking with strategists with California campaign experience to gain insight into the delegate math, ballot-collection practices and early voting.

Joe Biden has the support of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and he’s been calling other California elected leaders and keeping donors informed of his thinking, according to two people in touch with his team. Bernie Sanders, who barnstormed the state in 2016 race, is close with activists, including current and former leaders of the influential nurse’s union. Other contenders have flown in for talks with donors and related meet-and-greet sessions, yet they seldom add public events to the schedule.

Presidential candidates hoping to compete in California are in for an exceedingly expensive project: The state has 8.5 million registered Democrats spread over eight major media markets.

The state’s March 3 primary — with mail ballots going out in February — means candidates won’t be able to rely solely on momentum from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to carry them.

Harris, who has run statewide three times over the past eight years, has been appearing at public and private events and dialing up her activity of late. “She’s everywhere,” said California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a longtime Harris supporter who has not formally endorsed in the race. In an interview, the Democratic official compared Harris’ local network to a “political family that’s personal and professional.”

“I think someone can come in and make an impression,” Kounalakis said. “But it pales in comparison to being a true Californian who has risen up though our system and though our networks.”

While the Democratic field is still taking shape, the lack of an in-state competitor plays to Harris’ advantage. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti decided not to run, freeing up his donor network and giving Harris more breathing room the state’s largest city. Billionaire San Francisco investor Tom Steyer also passed on a 2020 bid.

Harris has ties to many of the state’s biggest donors after her campaigns for Senate in 2016, and California attorney general in 2014 and 2010. In her 2016 race, Harris relied heavily on high-dollar donations because she had yet to develop a digital presence. Keeping those donors with her in 2020 is a priority, particularly in a field of Democrats who've relied on San Francisco and Los Angeles as some of their largest sources of cash.

Over the years those cities have been veritable ATMs for Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar. For Sanders alone, three of the top seven regions he’s raised the most money from are in California: Los Angeles-Long Beach, San Francisco and Oakland.

A California bundler familiar with several candidates’ strategies said it’s too early to reach any conclusions — especially when some donors have said they are supporting two or more contenders. But the bundler said one trend he’s been hearing about could help Harris in Hollywood and Southern California: Campaign financiers have been expressing more interest in younger, next-generation candidates than those from the older political guard.

“They want passion,” the bundler said. “They’re looking for someone to make their hearts race.”

In the nine-county Bay Area, Harris secured the support of friend and former Hillary Clinton donor Susie Tompkins Buell, who said she was moved by the early momentum of the senator’s kickoff rally and called her “a fierce fighter.”

Harris’ California endorsements include Newsom (“I think the American people could not do better”) and the iconic labor and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta, who singled out Harris’ work on criminal justice reform and for immigrants. The two will serve alongside Lee, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, as Harris’ California co-chairs.

Other supporters include Reps. Lee, Ted Lieu, Nanette Barragan and Katie Hill, and 21 of the 28 Democrats in the state Senate.

California’s rules for alloting its delegates are dizzying, but here’s an overview of how it works: Some 416 pledged delegates will be divvied up among candidates based on the primary results. Of that total, 144 will be apportioned among candidates who clear 15 percent of the vote; anyone below that threshold gets no delegates. The remaining 272 pledged delegates are divided among the state’s 53 congressional districts — but not evenly.

In 2016, on average most districts had six delegates. But Pelosi’s San Francisco-based district had nine, while the least delegate-rich district, a seat represented at the time by former Republican Rep. David Valadao, had just four.

That roughly means if a presidential candidate won 60 percent of the vote in Pelosi’s district, they would bank five delegates, whereas if they won 60 percent of the vote in Valadao’s old district, they would pocket only two.

If Harris can clean up in the bluest, high-delegate districts, it could prove decisive. Katie Merrill, a California strategist who ran an attorney general campaign against Harris in 2010, believes she’s “unbeatable” in the Bay Area, based on her familiarity to the area and past performances there.

“And that’s a huge advantage statewide,” Merrill said. “The race for the other candidates is to come in second.”

Early California polling, which largely reflects who is best known at this point, shows a three-person race between Harris, Biden and Sanders — though both men have yet to announce.

In a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 60 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said they'd be excited about a Biden run, compared with 58 percent saying they’d be excited by a Harris bid. Harris does much better than Biden among self-described liberal Democrats — the party's base — and those who lean that way: Sixty-seven percent would be excited versus just 47 percent for Biden.

In interviews, California Democratic activists and leaders said that even with a favorite daughter in the race they relish the opportunity to hear directly from many candidates. “People are still very, very open,” said Michael Kapp, a Democratic National Committee member from Los Angeles.

“We’re going to kick the tires on them,” added Christine Pelosi, chairwoman of the California Democratic Party Women’s Caucus and the daughter of the House speaker. “I think a lot of people want to take a wait-and-see approach. They want to be wooed. They also don’t want coronations.”

