Newsletter: Essential Politics: Battling for bragging rights in California

With Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump rallying supporters from Sacramento to the Mexican border, a voter might almost believe that the California primary will decide who wins the Democratic and Republican nominations.

It won’t, of course.

Trump clinched the GOP nomination Thursday when several previously uncommitted delegates announced they would support him.

As for the Democratic contest, Clinton, with 2,310 delegates backing her, according to the latest count, needs just 73 more to clinch. She’ll pick up most of those from Puerto Rico a few days before she and Sanders divvy up California’s huge 548-member delegation.

Good afternoon, I’m David Lauter, Washington bureau chief. Welcome to the Friday edition of our Essential Politics newsletter, in which we look at the events of the week in the presidential campaign and highlight some particularly insightful stories.

MORE AT STAKE THAN JUST WINNING

For Clinton, of course, winning California is about more than just gaining the nomination.

The state is the Democratic Party’s biggest stronghold and, with its racially and ethnically diverse, urban population, its signature high-tech and cultural industries and its large population of college-educated liberals, one that exemplifies the modern Democratic coalition.

For Clinton, losing the Golden State would be more than embarrassing. It would mark a serious blow to her claim to lead the party whose standard bearer she almost certainly will be.

And so, both she and Sanders have devoted a week of their time to campaigning up and down the state, with more to come before the primary. Clinton has also begun airing ads in California, something she eschewed in most recent primaries.

As for Trump, he goes where the cameras are. And, of course, the cameras find him. Protesters know that, and they find him — and the cameras — as well. It’s a mix that we’re likely to see more and more as the campaign year continues.

Cathy Decker, who has unsurpassed knowledge of California politics, has chronicled the week’s events with typical insight.

Check out this account by her of Sanders and Clinton as “two planets, occupying orbits that only occasionally cross.” Or this assessment of why the two Democrats are so often campaigning outside the party’s big, urban bastions. Or this one, on two aging white men, Sanders and Bill Clinton, trying to find votes in youthful, diverse California.

As Decker also noted, the state’s voter registration is up significantly, but which candidate, if any, is set to benefit remains unclear.

Kate Linthicum sat down with Sanders for an interview on Wednesday night in Lancaster. See the transcript for Sanders’ thoughts about the goals his campaign may pursue at this summer’s Democratic convention.

BACK TO THOSE DARN EMAILS

Clinton backers may say the worries are unfounded, but many Democrats can’t shake the anxiety that, eventually, the investigations into her email practices while secretary of State will yield something truly damaging.

This week’s report by the department’s inspector general isn’t quite that. But, as Evan Halper pointed out, it did provide yet another reminder to the party that the saga isn’t over.

LOOKING AHEAD TO THE GENERAL

In last Friday’s newsletter, I wrote about the polls showing Trump gaining ground on Clinton. For those who want more on what the polls mean — and what they don’t — here’s a Q&A.

In any such matchup, some voters will be torn — cross-pressured, as political strategists like to say. Linthicum wrote about one such group: conservative, evangelical Latinos. Many say they strongly disagree with Democrats on issues such as abortion but just can’t bring themselves to support Trump.

Linthicum also looked at a small, but fascinating, group — Chinese immigrants who support Trump. Many are recent arrivals from China who find his nationalism and aura of strong leadership attractive.

Trump and Clinton won’t be the only two candidates on the November ballots, of course. Both the Libertarians on the right and the Greens on the left will be on all 50 state ballots, and several other parties will appear in many states.

Melanie Mason, who will be covering the Libertarian convention this weekend, had an interview with the party’s chairman, Nicholas Sarwark. The two major parties are “committed to self-destruction in front of us,” he told her. “We offer that option for people to vote for something that they want instead of something they’re afraid of.”

On the left, adherents of the smaller parties can only envy the attention and support that Sanders has gathered. As Halper reported, at least some on the left see the Vermont senator as more of a sellout than a champion.

Meantime, the man who Republicans often call a socialist, President Obama, has amped up his criticism of Trump. With the Democratic nomination still officially unsettled, Obama doesn’t want to openly campaign, but, as Christi Parsons and Mike Memoli noted, he has started emphasizing how tough the job of president is — no place for on-the-job training.

Obama’s popularity has risen recently, and opposition to his signature achievement, the healthcare reform law, has eased somewhat. As Noam Levey reported, the latest survey data show that some eight in 10 consumers who have bought insurance under the law say they are satisfied with their coverage.

WHAT WE’RE READING

— Ron Brownstein in the Atlantic provides a characteristically deep analysis of the “class inversion” in American politics: Democrats are now winning among college-educated white voters, a group that no Democrat has carried in the modern era, not even Lyndon Johnson in his landslide. Republicans, meantime, have become more and more the party of blue-collar whites, who once formed the core of the Democratic Party.

— And over at Bloomberg, Joshua Green has a profile of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, which includes a fascinating interview with Trump, who, among other things, predicts that in five years, the GOP will be transformed into “a workers’ party — a party of people that haven’t had a real wage increase in 18 years, that are angry.”

LOGISTICS

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That wraps up this week. Essential Politics will be taking the Memorial Day weekend off. My colleague Christina Bellantoni will be back Tuesday morning with the next weekday edition. Until then, keep track of all the developments in the 2016 campaign with our Trail Guide, at our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics.

Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com.