Former Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley is among the hosts of a Boston fund-raiser Tuesday for presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by the Globe.
Harris, a senator from California, is set to arrive in Boston after making her first trip to New Hampshire since announcing her candidacy on Jan. 20. Georgia Murray, the Boston philanthropist, and her husband, Mark Maloney, are hosting the evening reception at their South End home, where invitees are asked to donate from $1,000 to $2,800 to Harris’s campaign, according to the invitation.
The support of Coakley over her home-state senator, Elizabeth Warren, along with the other prominent names on the host list underscores how the crowded field of Democratic candidates is leading to a fierce competition for resources — including the backing of top-tier donors and supporters.
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It also may be a sign that Warren cannot count on home state loyalty to bring prominent Massachusetts players to her side. Warren, meanwhile, will travel to Harris’s home turf to hold a campaign event in Los Angeles Monday night.
Coakley, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2014, did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. She is a partner at Foley Hoag LLP, a prominent Boston law firm, and a registered state lobbyist.
Murray, a major Boston donor, has a history of supporting women candidates, including donating more than $15,000 to Warren and her political action committee, PAC for a Level Playing Field, in recent years. Murray has also been a donor to Harris, and she was finance chair for Ayanna Pressley’s 2018 campaign for Congress.
“We’re happy to support her, we think she’s terrific, and we look forward to her being president of the United States in 2020,” Murray said Thursday.
The event’s host committee features several other powerful Boston women, including some of the city’s most prominent women of color: Carol Fulp, chief executive of The Partnership, a nonprofit with the mission of bolstering diversity in the ranks of Boston businesses; Pamela Everhart, a senior vice president at Fidelity Investments; and Bennie Wiley, a former head of The Partnership who sits on the boards of numerous civic and business enterprises.
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Another host of the event, Sean Curran, a principal of Waterville Consulting, a public affairs and lobbying firm, was a strong supporter of former governor Deval Patrick, serving as cochairman of the governor’s finance committee in 2010.
The show of support for Harris in Boston may be linked to a senior member of the California Democrat’s finance team with deep Boston roots, Jennifer Liu, whose campaign e-mail address is listed on the invitation.
Liu is a former finance director for Patrick — and for his Together PAC — as well as for Coakley’s 2014 gubernatorial campaign. Most recently she served as national finance director for Harris’s Senate campaign.
Coakley lost a 2010 special election campaign against Republican Scott Brown for the Senate — a seat Warren ultimately won in 2012.
She donated the maximum $2,700 to Warren’s Senate reelection campaign, according to federal filings. But Coakley has never been a close political ally of Warren’s.
Coakley and Harris, who served as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017, overlapped in that office. Coakley was Massachusetts attorney general from 2007 until 2015.
Victoria McGrane can be reached at victoria.mcgrane@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @vgmac.
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