Did the state of California refrain from assigning any delegates to Kamala Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention? No, that's not true: While the states are called in alphabetical order, California and Minnesota passed so that the home states of the nominees could go at the end, a spokesperson for the California Democratic Party told Lead Stories. Minnesota, the home state of vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, went second to last and California went last, assigning 482 delegate votes to Kamala Harris.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X by @RealAlexJones on August 20, 2024. The post was captioned:
BREAKING: Kamala's Home State Of California PASSES On Assigning Delegates To Her
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Aug 21 17:33:47 2024 UTC)
The post includes a 1:41-minute-long video. At the 0:10 mark, Jason Rae, the secretary of the Democratic National Committee, called on California to participate in the celebratory roll call. The roll call was ceremonial, as a virtual vote had taken place earlier, with 99 percent of the participating delegates voting for Harris by August 5, 2024. The representative of California's delegation responded by saying:
Mr. Secretary, the great state of California passes at this time.
The ceremonial roll call was closed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, delivering 482 delegate votes. AP reported there were 11 California delegates who did not cast votes. Two California votes were cast in the virtual roll call for "present," the only option other than a vote for Harris. This would total 495. The total number of California delegates is 496. Lead Stories will update this article when we can account for the votes of all 496 delegates.
(Source: Lead Stories photo)
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 21, 2024, Lead Stories was able to ask a spokesperson for the California Democratic Party, Robin Swanson, about the roll call traditions and how it works with the home states. Swanson explained:
The states go in alphabetical order and because the presidential nominee is from our home state, as the proud home state, we took a pass so that we could be the last and the most excited, we wanted to save the best for last and deliver 496 delegates at the end so that we could end with a bang -- and we sure did!
You also would notice that Minnesota passed because they were the home state of the vice president, so, the vice presidential nominee. Minnesota went second to last and there was a build up to California. So that is historically the tradition, we followed through and we delivered with a bang.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims about the 2024 elections can be found here.
