LI Democrats scramble for convention spots in fluid election year

Possibly the most consequential campaign in years to become delegates to the Democratic National Convention has just drawn to a close in Nassau and Suffolk counties as dozens of Long Islanders ended their scramble for signatures to qualify for the state ballot.

The outcome of the jockeying to become delegates for individual Democratic presidential candidates could be important given the splintered Democratic field and the possibility of a multi-ballot convention in July. The last time that happened was in 1952, when the party nominated Adlai Stevenson after three ballots.

On Long Island, Democratic delegate candidates searched for signatures in apartment complex hallways, at train stations and on doorsteps in snow flurries and freezing rain.

The door-to-door canvassing prompted some puzzled responses from Nassau and Suffolk voters.

Jonathan Goldhirsch, 22, of Woodmere, a second-year Hofstra Law School student who filed petitions to become a delegate for Democrat Elizabeth Warren, said a common response was, “'What do you mean you have to collect all these signatures?' People think if you’re the senator, or you were vice president … or you previously ran for president like Senator Sanders, you’re already on the ballot.”

Goldhirsch continued, "They don’t seem to understand it’s your neighbors advocating for candidates, and they’re making sure they get elected."

Said Anne Flomenhaft, 24, of Malverne, who is seeking to become a Sanders delegate: "A lot of the process, besides going door-to-door, is explaining it."

Dozens of such delegate hopefuls spent the first few weeks of winter crisscrossing Long Island's five congressional districts to collect petition signatures to qualify for the state ballot for the April 28 presidential primary.

Their hunt ended with the Feb. 6 deadline for submitting signatures.

Republicans also will hold a statewide primary for president on April 28. The 81 New York delegates to the party's convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Aug. 24-27 will go to the candidate with the highest vote total in the presidential primary — almost certainly President Donald Trump.

The Democratic presidential race is highly fluid.

After the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg has 23 pledged delegates; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has 21; Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), 8; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), 7; and former Vice President Joe Biden, 6, according to tallies in The Washington Post.

Billionaire Tom Steyer also had delegates file petitions in New York, as did New York City entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who dropped out of the Democratic race last week.

Those who win on April 28 will join 184 New York delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee on July 13-16. Delegates either will be committed to a particular presidential candidate or will be uncommitted.

To win the Democratic nomination on the first ballot, a presidential candidate must receive 1,991 votes from pledged delegates.

For the first time in years, a large field of Democratic candidates from diverse wings of the party have broad support across the state, said Thomas Garry, state counsel for the Biden campaign and vice chairman of Nassau’s Democratic Party.

That contrasts with the New York primary in April 2016, when only Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were campaigning for the Democratic nomination across the state.

“It’s dramatically changed … because of the total number of candidates with some level of viable support,” Garry said. “They all come to the table with a core group of supporters all under a big tent.  ”

Throughout January and early February, delegate candidates collected signatures at a string of events in Nassau and Suffolk.

During a Democratic debate-watch party in January at "The Greene Turtle" sports bar and grill in East Meadow, Goldhirsch snagged a signature from a waiter. Canvassing also took place at "The Bean," a Patchogue coffee shop that serves cold brew and cake pops, and at a Starbucks in Selden.

The individual presidential campaigns also had their surrogates out.

In Great Neck, the Buttigieg campaign had Matthew Witten, a 46-year-old physicist, seeking signatures for convention delegate. Witten knocked on doors in his apartment complex and dispatched friends and family members — even "my mother's friends" — to pass out petitions so he could get on the ballot. 

Witten said he spoke by phone with Buttigieg after supporting his unsuccessful bid for Democratic National Committee chairman in 2017. Witten later became involved in Buttigieg’s “investor’s circle” for his presidential campaign, helping to raise money for the candidate.

It was "an interesting exercise in understanding how people think and how motivated people are in this coming election," Witten said. "It is archaic, and it's a big pain in 2020 to knock on doors and ask people to physically sign something. It feels [like] something that's very anachronistic, considering it's 2020, but that's where we are. That's how the process works."

Elizabeth Warren has William Ferraro, 36, of Selden, a contract manager for New York City's Administration for Children's Services. The delegate candidate likens himself to a "door-knocking sommelier." He says he spends perhaps too much time talking to neighbors while gathering signatures, but gets "to know people like they are bottles of wine.”

“I think there is a desire to be involved rather than sit on election night watching the results in the Midwest and wondering who our next president is going to be,” Ferraro said.

Some of the delegate candidates also are gathering signatures to get their presidential picks onto the state ballot for the April 28 primary. Each presidential candidate needs 5,000 valid Democratic signatures to make the ballot in New York State.

Klobuchar has Jared Goerke, 21, of Plainview, who gathered petitions to get her on the ballot in the community where he grew up.

“I was all over it from Day One,” said Goerke, who once received Klobuchar's memoir, “The Senator Next Door,” as a holiday gift from his grandparents. Goerke said Klobuchar's “pragmatic” approach to issues jibes with Long Island’s centrist politics.

While some delegate slates are comprised of grassroots activists, others include elected officials from town and county government.

The slate for the Biden campaign includes some elected officials who served as delegates for Hillary Clinton in 2016, including Nassau County Legis. Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport), the minority leader, and North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth, of Great Neck.

Jay Jacobs, Nassau and state Democratic Party chairman, noted that grassroots groups often have "a little bit of an advantage," in getting such slates on the ballot in that, ”they’ve got a big group of young people who are active and willing to stand out in the streets, go to grocery stores. Particularly in the winter, that’s tough to do."

But in Biden's case, “since he’s made friends over a long period of time, he can rely on organizations that have volunteers who can do the same thing,” said Jacobs, who is not backing a presidential candidate in the primary.

Kimberly Cesiro Cooley, 36, of Baldwin, who filed petitions to become a Sanders delegate, said the Sanders campaign is able to show evidence of grassroots support by fielding a delegate slate, even though there is no requirement to do so.

“We want to show the voters … that Bernie has as much support as possible behind him,” said Cooley, a social action coordinator for a nonprofit.

Some acknowledged tension between delegate candidates supported by public officials and those backed by activists.

Cooley said, “I certainly don’t have the name recognition of local elected officials, or party leaders, but perhaps what I may lack in name recognition … I believe we may make up for in passion,” she said. “We need the base to be as passionate as possible and as fired up as humanly possible, and that includes people that maybe haven’t felt previously heard."

Anne Flomenhaft, 24, of Malverne, who is seeking to become a Sanders delegate, said “there’s definitely some looks because … we Bernie delegates definitely tried to go to areas that are nontraditional.” The campaign has focused on “low propensity” voters, who are often ignored by political campaigns, she said.

But delegate candidates acknowledge the search for petition signatures can be a slog.

Ashley Hunt-Martorano, 38, of Medford, a marketing manager for a nonprofit environmental organization who gathered signatures to get Buttigieg on the state ballot, said she knows “what it’s like to knock on doors … to have somebody be very grumpy and slam the door in your face.”

Ferraro, the Warren supporter, said “at the beginning of the petition process, getting 500 to 1,000 signatures might not seem like a lot if you’re not used to doing it. However, once you spend two to three hours in a neighborhood getting signatures, only to fill up one sheet of about 10 signatures, you realize how difficult it is and how many people you need pulling in the same direction to achieve your outcome.”

Said Witten, who also gathered nominating signatures for Buttigieg: “It was a wonderful exercise in engaging my neighbors and hearing what they really think. But it was kind of a time suck.”

With Michael Gormley

By Scott Eidler

scott.eidler@newsday.com@ScottEidler

Scott Eidler is a deputy editor for the towns department at Newsday. Scott has worked at Newsday since 2012 and previously covered municipal government and education.