It might not be a surprise that Sen. Kamala Harris would be bringing in a boatload of cash from Californians as she runs for President.
But a quickie analysis shows that she is not merely besting the competition; she’s trouncing it.
Moreover, that analysis shows surprisingly low enthusiasm for Sen. Bernie Sanders among Californians, at least as gauged by donations from Golden Staters.
In the first quarter of the year, Harris raised an eye-popping $4.3 million from Californians. Sanders, the national frontrunner managed $780,000; Sen. Cory Booker, who national polling suggests is not even approaching “real contender” status also bested Sanders with $870,000 from California.
The numbers underline that despite the perception of California as a hard-left “people’s republic,” progressive but not actually leftist candidates who are younger and, well, less white and male show stronger appeal here.
This is little surprise to everyone who expected Hillary Clinton to win California handily in the 2016 primary, and who watched with amusement as Bernie Bros online suggested she’d stolen the state or that somehow, when all the votes were in, Sanders would prevail. To this day, especially on Twitter, one can find Sandersnistas who believe Sanders beat Hillary in California (in fact, she beat him by close to 8 points)– initially a rumor that went so viral that Politifact did a fact check on it in June 2016, labeling the claim “Pants On Fire.”
Among Kamala’s “celebrity” big donors are LA Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner. Beutner’s support for Harris may serve to deepen concerns among teachers’ unions that, like President Obama, she’s insufficiently friendly to teachers’ unions– despite her campaign pledge to raise teachers’ salaries via an injection of federal funds.
Of course, there are plenty of Hollywood types and sports celebrities and lawyers, too: Jeffrey Katzenberg, Sally Field, Jon Hamm, Ronnie Lott (who played for the 49ers), and celebrity and celebrity defendant Felicity Huffman.
In any event, it’s another metric that suggests that if former VP Joe Biden does not enter the race, Harris could be the anti-Bernie around whom Democrats need to coalesce if they want to remain a progressive, but not Democratic Socialist, party.
H/T CAL Matters.