June 7: California's Moment in the Sun?

For years – make that decades – California has struggled for relevancy on the road to the White House in ways other than take-the-money-and-run fundraisers and guest appearances on late-night television talk shows.

The last time the Golden State had a high-profile presence this late in the year in a presidential election? Probably 1968 – and a Democratic primary culminating in the tragic death of Robert F. Kennedy.

For Republicans, the wait’s even longer. Try 1964 and the ideological joust between Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller that played out all the way to that year’s GOP national convention in, of all places, that bastion of conservatism, San Francisco.

With many a political eye turned to California in anticipation of next Tuesday’s presidential primary, does this mean the Golden State’s presidential drought is over?

The answer: Yes and no.

California is not the player it was at the beginning of May, when the nation-state’s June 7 primary seemed the only chance of denying Donald Trump the delegates he needed for a first-ballot victory at the Republicans’ convention in Cleveland.

On the other hand, the state is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ last chance to publicly embarrass Hillary Clinton (sorry, Washington, D.C. -- your June 14 primary just doesn’t have the same heft).

Here are four things to keep an eye on as we enter the final countdown to California’s vote:

Where’s Hillary’s California Love? Fewer states have been kinder to the two campaigning Clintons. Bill and Hillary have prevailed every time they ran in a California presidential contest, including her primary victory there over Barack Obama in 2008.

Over the years, the former First Couple have returned the favor: Bill Clinton visited San Francisco no less than 23 times during his presidency (compared to zero visits for George W. Bush); daughter Chelsea spent four years just down the peninsula at Stanford University.

Will California do Hillary Clinton one more favor? A Hoover Golden State Poll released earlier this week gives her a 13-point cushion over Sanders.

However, that survey contains at least two warning signs for the Democrats’ nominee-in-waiting: Sanders devastates her by 40 points among independents (in California parlance: “no party preference,” or NPP); she trails, by a 2-1 margin, among voters under the age of 30.

Even if Clinton takes the state, the poll is a sign that she has work to do if the goal is to unify her party and appeal to more than core Democrats.

Can The Donald Trump Romney? The same Hoover poll has Trump weighing in at 66 percent. That’s in line with the 74.5 percent majority the developer earned in Washington’s May 24 primary and the 66.6 percent he received in Oregon the week before.

Why this is troublesome for Trump, should the Hoover number hold up: Mitt Romney received a shade below 80 percent in California’s 2012 primary when he too was a GOP nominee-in-waiting.

Like Clinton, Trump is weakest with his party’s youngest voters (only 56 percent support from the under-30 crowd). And his minority numbers are anemic – only 45 percent black support and 58 percent Latino support among likely GOP primary voters (Clinton came in at 71 percent with black voters; her Latino support was a surprisingly soft 51 percent).

Bottom line: In this primary season, California is Trump’s final flourish – and evidence that he hasn’t finalized the deal with many Republicans.

First- and Second-Degree Berns. Sanders has worked the state diligently. He’s held massive rallies and yucked it up with Jimmy Kimmel. Meanwhile, Bernie-loving celebrities have been RV’ing around the state on his behalf.

On Monday, Sanders made a stop in Oakland right about the time the San Jose Sharks were facing off in the first game of the Stanley Cup finals and the Golden State Warriors were gearing up for Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference finals.

Could it be possible that, even if Sanders does own a television, he doesn’t understand the viewing habits of Bay Area sports fans? (He was astute enough, however, to make his way into the Warriors’ arena to press the flesh.)

Talk as he does about sparking a progressive revolution, Sanders is at the mercy of two California unknowns, one being the fate of non-Democrats who want to vote for him on June 7. Under state rules, voters can take part in the Democratic presidential primary if they register or re-register as NPP (the Republican primary is closed).

However, some California voters, believing they were signing up as independents, instead ended up registering with the American Independent Party – the same outfit that was behind George Wallace in 1968 (one survey shows that as many as three-fourths of the party’s California members mistakenly joined it).

In California, voters had until May 23 – a full two weeks before the primary – to correct the mistake. Sanders supporters filed a lawsuit to extend that deadline. Time will tell how many would-be Sanders voters failed to make the switch and won’t be eligible to vote for him.

Also complicating matters: Those Californians were crossed up by another intricacy in Golden State election rules – voters having to file a separate request for a Democratic presidential ballot. This problem’s more easily remedied. Voters have until May 31 to request the ballot, or they can demand it in person on June 7.

The second California unknown: turnout among high school seniors and college-age voters.

For Sanders, a primary held on the first Tuesday presents these challenges: It’s a school day for 18-year-olds soon to graduate from high school; while some California colleges are still in session (UCLA’s commencement is this Friday), others have already ended their academic years.

All of which means the Sanders campaign has to demonstrate the organizational muscle to get students still on California campuses to turn out on June 7, while also tracking down and getting absentee ballots to those collegians out of school – and possibly passed out, lying on a beach, or out of the state. 

A California Primary 2.0 in 2020? In California, there’s wine . . . and whining.

To those who’d like to see the Golden State have greater clout in the nominating process, the easiest fix would be advancing the parties’ primaries to an earlier date (in 2008, California went to the polls on the first Tuesday in February).

But to do so would require action – and a generous outlay of cash – by a Democratic-controlled Legislature. Maybe this happens under a Trump presidency and with Democrats in search of a new nominee in 2020. Otherwise, good luck getting liberals in Sacramento to help GOP’s fragile California existence.

The other likely complaint – among conservative Republicans, at least: California’s “open primary.” In effect since 2010’s Proposition 14, it places all congressional and statewide candidates on one ballot, with the top-two finishers in each contest advancing to the general election regardless of party affiliation.

Next Tuesday, in California’s U.S. Senate race, the blanket system likely will select a pair of Democrats – State Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (in Hoover’s poll, they led with 26 percent and 13 percent, respectively). The three most prominent Republicans received a scant 6 percent apiece.

If Californians don’t like the new system, they aren’t showing it – 47 percent of voters in the Hoover poll said they’d stick with the open primary even if it yields one-party Democratic results. But if two Republicans were the end result the support falls to 38 percent.

And the likelihood of that happening next Tuesday?

In the biggest of the blue states: California dreaming.