SAN FRANCISCO — Joe Biden isn’t attending the California Democratic Party’s convention, but he sent his regrets.
The state party’s acting head on Friday conveyed the former vice president’s apology for not attending the body’s organizing convention, a conspicuous absence at the largest gathering of Democrats in a state that has become even more important to White House hopefuls.
Fourteen Democratic contenders will address more than 5,000 attendees over the course of the three-day event, held in San Francisco and starting Friday.
Biden, who leads a crowded field of Democrats jostling for the right to challenge President Trump next year, is instead expected to make remarks at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Columbus dinner in Ohio.
“Vice President Biden called me personally on Wednesday. We had an 11-minute conversation. He wanted to be here, but he is being pulled all over the place, as many of our top candidates are. And what he wanted to express to me is that California was very important. He’s been here. He will be here many times,” Alexandra Gallardo-Rooker, the state party’s temporary chair, told reporters.
Gallardo-Rooker made the comments during a press conference announcing the party would be hosting a more formal presidential forum with Univision in Long Beach in November. California, a donor and delegate-rich state, has become key to many aspiring Oval Office occupants as its primary date has been moved forward to fall on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020.
“I invited him to come in November. Of course, I said, ‘I’ll see you in November.’ He said, ‘No, we’ll see you a lot way before November,” she said of Biden. “So that means obviously he has plans to come out here more. But he has an LGBTQ foundation dinner that he committed to some time ago, and so he has to attend that. And I know it’s difficult when you have things planned, trying to get from the Midwest or the East Coast to California in the space of time that we have to give them to speak, so I just wanted you all to know that, that that’s the reason why he’s not going to be here.”
Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as well as Reps. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Eric Swalwell of California, will speak at the California Democratic Party’s 2019 Organizing Convention, one of two conventions taking place in the state this year. They will be joined by Obama-era housing chief Julián Castro, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and ex-Reps. Beto O’Rourke of Texas and John Delaney of Maryland.
