Welcome to the weekly BERN (Bernie Election and Revolution News), a collaborative effort of the Daily Kos Group The Political Revolution. We are not affiliated with the campaign, except as donors and/or volunteers. Numerous group members have contributed to this series in affirmation of Bernie’s campaign motto “Not me. Us.”
Today I’m going to talk about the California Primary and other big news from the Organizing With Bernie house parties.
CA is Bernie’s largest donor and volunteer base. After the 2016 election, many Bernie activists (like the one in the top photo) continued working for progressive candidates and ballot propositions with local Our Revolution groups. They are already working on the 2020 campaign. Sign up for Community Canvassing events around the country (Events Map)!
The CA primary will take place on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020 with 475 delegates in play. Below is a map from the June primary in 2016. Bernie won 46% of the delegates with strong support in the North and East. Depending on who is running in the primary next March, I believe Bernie will remain strong in the North and needs to campaign harder in the South. The Bay Area could be a toss-up as data below shows.
In the first quarter of 2019, the campaign reported that 97,000 of 525,000 individual donors are from CA [including un-itemized donations of less than $200] (LA Times). Using Open Secrets data (of itemized donations greater than $200) this table compares Bernie’s top States for fundraising in 2016 and the 1st quarter of 2019. Even at this early date, the percentages are quite similar. California loves Bernie!
Top Donations by State - Bernie 2016 vs. 2019
State |
2016 Primary |
1st Q 2019 |
ca |
22.6% |
27.1% |
NY |
9.2% |
10.1% |
WA |
6.2% |
5.9% |
MA |
5.1% |
5.2% |
other |
57% |
52% |
From the Q1 2019 data, 6 of the top 10 Zip Codes are in the Bay Area & nearby Santa Cruz. The top 2 are Senator Harris’ home turf of Oakland, and San Francisco where she was DA. I suspect she would win this region overall but would still split some delegates with Bernie and/or Biden.
The Democratic Party convention is being held May 31 — June 2 in San Francisco. An election for the Party Chair will be held to replace the interim acting chair. Kimberly Ellis is an Our Revolution candidate who narrowly lost the 2017 election to LA Dem Chair Eric Bauman. In 2018 Bauman resigned due to numerous sexual misconduct allegations. The interim chair has also faced backlash over the firing of staff members. Ellis is well liked and has a very good shot to win and serve out the rest of the 2017-2021 term.
Meet Kimberly Ellis
As the former Executive Director of Emerge California, the state’s most effective training program for Democratic women who run for office, Kimberly is a nationally recognized Progressive leader who has been credited with revolutionizing Democratic politics in California. After running for Chair of the California Democratic Party in 2017 where she inspired thousands, this past summer Kimberly Ellis founded and launched Unbought - Unbossed (UnB2), an incubator for the next generation of political disruptors.
She is committed to preparing for the 2020 Presidential Primary and having California play a role in taking back the White House.
California’s new oversized role on Super Tuesday has certainly changed the stakes for California Democrats. It’s critical that our State Party ensures a fair playing field for all contenders and ensures that our Party remains whole after what is expected to be a hotly contested primary. California Democrats also need a Chair who can leverage California’s new found heft on the national political stage to steer policy conversations towards the values articulated in the CDP’s platform, such as Medicare-For-All and healthcare as a human right. California must also ensure that our resources and efforts are put to strategic use in taking back the White House in 2020.
The Bernie Sanders campaign kicked off its massive volunteer program this weekend by holding nearly 5,000 house parties across the country and unveiling a new organizing app that gives campaign supporters a way to share political information on friends, family, and neighbors.
Sanders’s strategy to emerge from the crowded primary field revolves around energizing and empowering his army of supporters, and giving them easy-to-use tools in the hopes of expanding the electoral map in both the primary and general elections. More than 60,000 people attended the events, which took place in every state and more than 30 countries outside the U.S., according to the campaign.
Please feel free to share more tweets or pics of house parties you attended!
The canvassing App was designed by people who worked on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign. They only used it the last 3 weeks of the campaign but it appears to have helped her win.
[Inventors] Sussan and DeGroot are being selective about which campaigns can use Reach. In general elections, the app is available to any Democrat but in primaries, Reach is limited to Democrat candidates who have vowed not to take corporate donations.
“Our mission is to power a world where grassroots progressive activism can beat corporate cash,” DeGroot said. “We see this tool as a key component for a campaign that wants to be able to win by harnessing the full power of their volunteer team.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign used Reach for the final three weeks leading up to the primary. DeGroot said that 15 percent of voters the campaign reached out to were contacted using the app. What’s more, the turnout rate of voters contacted using Reach was about 14 percent higher than the turnout rate of voters contacted using traditional methods.
In other news!
Month-end Money Bomb: Please donate to Bernie!