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At the same time Friday night, across the bay in San Francisco, Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Amy Klobuchar were pressing their cases and posing for selfies at a crowded meeting of the Latino caucus of the California Democratic Party. Not far away, Jane Sanders, the wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders, made a surprise stop at a dinner gathering of self-described “Berniecrats.”
The next morning, Sens. Sanders and Kamala Harris bumped into each other backstage at a labor breakfast, as more than a dozen candidates crisscrossed San Francisco’s streets for dueling speeches at the state party convention and another nearby progressive gathering.
For years, California has been an afterthought in presidential primaries, because it usually votes long after candidates have sewn up their parties’ nominations with wins in other states. While California was among the final states to vote last time, in June 2016, state officials have now moved up the primary date by three months. In March 2020, its treasure trove of nearly 500 Democratic delegates is poised to play a decisive role at the start of the nominating contests.
“We are,” Gov. Gavin Newsom of California proudly declared, “an early voting state.”
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Millions of California Democrats will be eligible to start casting ballots by mail on Feb. 3 — the same day as Iowans head to their leadoff caucuses. Yet California’s true effect on the nomination may depend heavily on the results in Iowa and on whether a runaway nominee emerges in the following three contests of New Hampshire (on Feb. 11), Nevada (Feb. 22) and South Carolina (Feb. 29).
Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, said California is set to play “a disproportionately large role” in the 2020 nomination.
“Anyone who’s discounting it or not paying attention to it and treating it as an early primary state is looking at it wrong,” Shakir said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.