Essential Politics: Closing in on the finish line

Hillary Clinton could clinch her long-sought goal, the Democratic nomination for president, as early as Sunday. So why does it still feel like a race is on?

Credit, in part, the ability of Sen. Bernie Sanders and his campaign to keep moving the goalposts. Two months ago, they vowed that New York would be the key battle. After spending millions there and losing, they talked up Pennsylvania. Now California.

The political press, which hates to call a contest over, and Sanders’ ardent supporters, many of whom are not ready for the crusade to end, have also played their roles.

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.

THE END OF THE PRIMARIES

Despite the best efforts of the Sanders camp and the media to keep the primary contest alive, it will come to an end Tuesday, if not earlier.

As of Friday morning, the Associated Press delegate count had Clinton 70 short of a majority. She’s likely to win the lion’s share of the 67 delegates up for grabs in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Saturday and Sunday. A number of superdelegates who have not yet committed themselves publicly could use that opportunity to endorse her and put her over the top.

You can follow all the results, as well as analysis of what they mean, on Sunday and on Tuesday night, on Trail Guide, and on our Politics page.

If the final clinch doesn’t come Sunday, Clinton will enter Tuesday’s primaries needing only a handful of delegates with more than 600 up for grabs in six states from New Jersey to California. With so few needed, she’ll be able to declare herself the presumptive nominee as soon as polls close on the East Coast.

So, with all that, why does the campaign in California continue so intensely? As Evan Halper explained, losing California would be a significant setback for Clinton even if she’s already won the nomination. Not only would a loss in the state end the major primaries on a sour note, but it would also amount to a repudiation in the Democratic Party’s biggest bastion.

Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, are making a final sprint in California — some 30 events over the final five days — to prevent a loss.

And on Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown endorsed Clinton, a move that closed out a generation-long rivalry between two of the Democratic Party’s leading families, as Halper and John Myers explained.

Our latest USC Dornsife/L.A. Times poll indicates those efforts may prevail. The poll found Clinton up by 10 points among the voters most likely to cast ballots, even though Clinton and Sanders were virtually tied among all eligible voters. But, as Cathy Decker noted, the poll also showed that the campaign has taken a considerable toll on Clinton’s popularity, even in this heavily Democratic state.

One reason Sanders continues to campaign is to strengthen his leverage in negotiations over the party platform. As Noah Bierman reported, one of the issues on which Sanders and his allies seem to be setting the groundwork for a fight is policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. That’s not been a major focus of Sanders’ campaign, but it does reflect a strong current of skepticism toward Israel in the left wing of the party.

THE NOVEMBER RACE HAS ALREADY STARTED

Meanwhile, even as the Democrats continue to battle, the general election campaign is already fully underway.

Clinton on Thursday stepped up her attacks on Donald Trump as an unacceptable risk as commander in chief. That critique builds on one of her areas of strength. Polls indicate that handling foreign policy is near the top of the list of issues on which voters are most likely to view her as preferable to Trump.

President Obama also has increasingly started to weigh in, previewing the effort he will make against Trump in the fall campaign, Mike Memoli reported.

Foreign affairs are just one of the areas on which Trump’s knowledge of policy is thin. As Lisa Mascaro reports, the New York businessman has started getting a crash course in policy, and he’s actually taking notes.

But the presumptive GOP nominee continues to puzzle even some of his backers. He held a news conference this week to talk about his contributions to veterans charities, which turned into a festival of grievances, as Bierman reported.

And for those who thought Trump might remake himself now that he’s seized the party’s nomination, he had a clear message: “I’m not changing.”

Trump claims to think he can win in California in a general election — an almost absurdly improbable idea for any Republican — but as Michael Finnegan reported, he often seems to be running a campaign to alienate the state’s voters.

Our latest poll shows that currently, Clinton would defeat Trump in California by a margin even bigger than Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney in 2012, and that’s even though a significant number of Sanders supporters say they would not vote for her. If, as expected, many of them change their minds by November, Clinton’s lead in the state could grow even larger.

The volatile nature of this year’s campaign has given new hope to outsiders. As Melanie Mason reports from this past weekend’s Libertarian convention, party members hope the splits in Republican ranks may give them an opening in 2016.

Finally, check out this fascinating look at who has given all that money to Bernie Sanders. As Seema Mehta and the Times data team discovered, a surprisingly large share comes from people who are retired, unemployed or otherwise not in the workforce.

DON’T FORGET THE SENATE CAMPAIGN (MOST VOTERS SEEM TO HAVE)

The political attention in California has overwhelmingly focused on the presidential race, eclipsing the campaign to replace Sen. Barbara Boxer. Our poll continues to show two Democrats, state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, as the top two finishers, setting up the possibility of an all-Democratic runoff in the fall. The poll also shows that few voters are paying attention.

As Phil Willon wrote, Harris seems all but assured of a spot in the runoff. Sanchez has a strong shot at the second slot, with a significant lead over all three of the major Republican candidates, but her support remains soft, the poll showed.

There’s an irony here: Moderate Republicans were the main instigators behind the initiative by which the state adopted the top-two primary system. They hoped it would help them bypass the Republican primaries in California, which are dominated by conservatives. But with the GOP in such deep decline in the state, Democrats are now able to use the system to effectively shut the GOP out entirely.

WHAT WE’RE READING

The title sounds like a Harry Potter sequel — Donald Trump and the seven broken guardrails of democracy — but the article, by David Frum in the Atlantic, is a perceptive analysis by a former Bush administration speechwriter of how traditional restraints in the GOP collapsed, allowing Trump to win the party’s nomination.

LOGISTICS

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That wraps up this week. My colleague Christina Bellantoni will be back Monday with the weekday edition of Essential Politics. 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.

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