Newsletter: Essential Politics: What happens when all three candidates campaign in California

I’m Christina Bellantoni. This is Essential Politics.

There was no blood spilled and no tear gas.

Donald Trump’s rally in Anaheim Wednesday drew a huge — and happy — crowd, with just a few clashes between supporters and protesters resulting in arrests.

We covered every moment live, so catch up quick with the videos, photos and analysis our team posted from the scene.

NOT HOLDING BACK

Trump minced no words from the stage, tearing first into his former GOP rivals and then into critics and his presumed general election foe.

As Michael Finnegan reports, at a time when he needs to expand his appeal for the general election, Trump played to his party’s base of conservative white voters at the rally across the street from Disneyland.

The presumptive nominee’s rhetoric also exposed the limitations of his attempts to modulate his language to strike a less offensive posture toward women. He mocked Hillary Clinton, suggesting that she’d recently broken her habit of shouting in an attempt to appear more presidential. “I’ll be honest with you, I cannot listen to her,” he said.

CLINTON NEARBY

An hour earlier and less than 10 miles away, Clinton teed off on Trump’s foreign policy, saying his rhetoric endangers Americans. As Seema Mehta reports, there were no mass protests or arrests, but there were two shirtless men who unsuccessfully tried to hug the Democratic front-runner.

During her appearance in Buena Park, Clinton didn’t once mention her Democratic rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been drawing enormous crowds as he barnstorms the state this week. But Mehta reports that Clinton purchased at least $1 million in television ad time on Wednesday, matching the markets and buys Sanders announced the prior day.

COMPETING STRATEGIES

As they campaign through California — and Sanders has added another few rallies across the state — Clinton and her rival are taking markedly different approaches.

Clinton is aiming at Trump and the threat she says he would pose to the nation. She has honed her pitch to emphasize what she says are his failings as a candidate and would-be president. She is running on her merit, to be sure, but also as the only alternative to Trump winning the White House, Cathleen Decker writes for today’s front page.

Sanders is focused on the nearly impossible task of overtaking Clinton between now and the summer convention. If he is not yet crafting an elegy for his presidential hopes, he increasingly is describing his goals as the tenets of a movement that could outlive his candidacy. He scaldingly targets both Republicans and Democrats as consumed by corruption.

WHAT’S HE WAITING FOR?

George Skelton gets at the question California political observers have been wondering as they watch Gov. Jerry Brown endorse candidate-after-candidate in other races — will he weigh in on the presidential contest battling down to the wire for his state’s June 7 primary?

Skelton plays the game of why Brown’s blessing would matter, and writes that in an earlier era, Brown might have backed Sanders. But the Vermont senator, he suspects, is way too big a spender — Medicare for all, free college tuition — for a fiscal centrist who has made budget prudence the legacy of his second governorship.

ALL TIED UP

Clinton and Sanders appear to be neck and neck in the state, according to a new poll released by the Public Policy Institute of California. Among likely Democratic voters, Clinton had 46% support, Sanders had 44% and the margin of error was plus or minus 5.7 percentage points — a statistical tie.

For the latest on the race, keep an eye on Trail Guide and follow @latimespolitics.

HERNANDEZ APPEARS AT ABUSE HEARING

Assemblyman Roger Hernández sat expressionless through most of the divorce court hearing in Los Angeles Wednesday as his wife detailed more than 20 incidents where she said he abused her. The accusations from Susan Rubio, who sobbed through most of her testimony, were detailed, Javier Panzar reports.

She said Hernández accused her of “hooking up” with state Sen. Ben Hueso when they went on a trip to Rosarito, Mexico, for her birthday with Hueso and his wife. Rubio said Hernández was upset that she and Hueso had gone ahead while horseback riding on the beach and later pushed her when the other couple “weren’t looking.”

A spokeswoman for Hueso said he remembers the trip but that there was no fight and the couple never argued.

REGULATING TOXIC SUBSTANCES

Congress is expected to pass legislation overhauling the 40-year-old law governing how the Environmental Protection Agency regulates toxic chemicals in products Americans use every day.

After first blocking the bill over concerns about how it would affect California’s laws and ability to regulate chemicals, Sen. Barbara Boxer got amendments added she says will protect state interests and is actively pushing the legislation.

TODAY’S ESSENTIALS

— A new finding by the State Department’s internal watchdog that Clinton clearly broke department rules when she used private email for government business once again focuses the presidential race on an issue the Democratic front-runner has worked for months to put behind her. The highly critical report, issued by the department’s inspector general and sent to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, concluded that Clinton created a security risk and violated transparency and disclosure policies.

— Tommy Chong seems to have chilled out after saying it was an “insult” that Sanders disinvited him to an event in East Los Angeles.

— Univision anchor María Elena Salinas did not think she would incite any controversy when she delivered a small part of her commencement address at Cal State Fullerton in Spanish, or when she discussed the media’s role in covering Trump. But she was heckled.

— San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer won’t be running for governor.

— What do you think of Trump? Readers can weigh in with our quick survey.

LOGISTICS

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