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Kamala Harris overwhelmingly wins the California Democratic Party's endorsement (xpost from GD)
CA-Sen: Over the weekend, the California Democratic Party held its convention and voted to endorse state Attorney General Kamala Harris over Rep. Loretta Sanchez. Winning the state party endorsement isn't the same thing as winning the Democratic nomination, but it is important. Candidates who receive formal endorsements have their names included on the party's official sample ballot that gets distributed to voters. That won't make too much of a difference in a high-profile Senate race where both candidates will be airing ads (it matters much more in House races, where the candidates aren't nearly as well-known), but the convention's decision to pick Harris over Sanchez shows which way California's Democratic activists are leaning.
To earn the endorsement, a candidate needs to win at least 60 percent of the convention delegates. That's a high bar to clear, so it's pretty rare for the California Democratic Party to endorse in competitive statewide races. However, Harris took 78 percent of the delegates, a pretty remarkable showing indeed. Sanchez has been a member of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition for years, and she hasn't done a particularly good job appealing to liberals since she launched her campaign. In May, Sanchez mocked Native Americans when she tried imitating a war whoop, and she's repeatedly insisted that as many as 20 percent of Muslims "have a desire for a caliphate" and "are willing to use and they do use terrorism" to achieve those ends. Sanchez would have had a difficult time denying Harris the endorsement in any case, but these incidents certainly didn't help her case.
To earn the endorsement, a candidate needs to win at least 60 percent of the convention delegates. That's a high bar to clear, so it's pretty rare for the California Democratic Party to endorse in competitive statewide races. However, Harris took 78 percent of the delegates, a pretty remarkable showing indeed. Sanchez has been a member of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition for years, and she hasn't done a particularly good job appealing to liberals since she launched her campaign. In May, Sanchez mocked Native Americans when she tried imitating a war whoop, and she's repeatedly insisted that as many as 20 percent of Muslims "have a desire for a caliphate" and "are willing to use and they do use terrorism" to achieve those ends. Sanchez would have had a difficult time denying Harris the endorsement in any case, but these incidents certainly didn't help her case.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/1/1493520/-Morning-Digest-Kamala-Harris-overwhelmingly-wins-the-California-Democratic-Party-s-endorsement
h/t Stellar
