All eyes are on California as the winner of this deceive primary in the Democratic primary. After the Golden State votes on June 7th, Hillary Clinton will finally reach the 2,383 delegates needed to win the democratic presidential nomination, combined with both superdelegates and pledge delegates. But Senator Bernie Sanders hopes to win the state and claim that he is the best candidate to lead the party in November, no matter the fact that he trails in the popular vote, pledge and superdelegate count.
The real contest between the two democratic contenders will be for the Latino vote, which is the largest demographic in the state. Sanders hopes he can break through the firewall Clinton has created through decades with the Latino community. This is going to be difficult as Clinton has held on to the support of Latinos in the past primary elections such as Florida and Texas, both have large Latino populations. Sanders’ campaign hopes to change this narrative and broaden his coalition.
By some estimates, Latinos could make up as many as 2 in 10 voters in California. The contest comes on the same day as those in New Jersey and several other states, in what amounts to the finale of the 2016 primary season. You could say that age lines have defined the fight for the Latino vote. Clinton ran up a commanding 2-to-1 edge with Hispanics when she carried California over Barack Obama in the state’s 2008 presidential primary. But an independent Field Poll last month revealed a much closer contest and a familiar divide in the electorate: Clinton had a 7-point edge with Hispanics overall, while Sanders was the choice by a nearly 3-to-1 margin for Latinos under age 40.
Meanwhile, voter registration among young Hispanics, those age 18 to 29, has been climbing, and they lean to Sanders. Sanders “has a real potential to win Latinos” in California, predicted Sanders campaign pollster Ben Tulchin. “He needs an influx of young Latinos and he’s getting it, it’s happening.” Who ultimately turns out on Election Day will be critical to the outcome, said Jaime Regalado, former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.
“The most likely Latino voter is still an older voter in California,” Regalado said. “And those voters, almost to a person, will stay with Clinton.” Clinton can count endorsements from virtually all of the state’s prominent Hispanic politicians, including former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Secretary of State Alex Padilla and U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, who heads the House Democratic Caucus. This past week, she added Dolores Huerta, a co-founder of United Farm Workers, to her list of Hispanic advisers.
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