A select group of Massachusetts Democrats is about to become even more influential.
President Joe Biden’s quick endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris might have been meant as a neat hand-off of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate baton, but it is ultimately up to the delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention — including 116 from Massachusetts — to decide who will be the party’s nominee.
“Elections are always about math; this one is no different. She announced she was running for president yesterday, she started calling delegates and political leaders yesterday, she’s gathering an awful lot of support between yesterday and today. The person who gets the most delegates first gets the nomination,” Mass. Democratic Party Chairman Steve Kerrigan said Monday morning on GBH Radio in response to a question about a “coronation” for Harris. “This is not an insider game. This is just how politics works in any party and in any nation. And so this is not about a coronation, this is about organization.”
The Massachusetts Democratic Party has a total of 116 delegates and eight alternates, according to the party. Sixty delegates and the eight alternates were chosen by Congressional district-level caucuses this spring and 20 at-large delegates were chosen by the Democratic State Committee. The party also has 24 “automatic party leaders and elected official” delegates and 12 “pledged party leaders and elected officials” delegates.
A Democratic Party spokesman said there will be a call Monday night among the Mass. Democratic State Committee and a separate call for national delegates. The spokesman said that party delegates will be able to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice, but that the party will wait until after the calls to further discuss the next steps of the process.
Kerrigan told GBH’s “Boston Public Radio” that he was on a similar call Sunday night with representatives of the…