But here’s the reason why Clinton needs to beat Sanders in California next week: She doesn’t want to give him any legitimate rationale to remain in the race beyond June 7 or June 14 (the final primary in DC). Why? Because as our colleague Dante Chinni writes, the moment Sanders exits the race, her poll numbers against Trump will increase. “[T]o get a better look at where the Clinton-Trump race might stand after the nominating dust has settled, we recalculated the latest NBC/WSJ poll with Clinton capturing 70 percent of the Sanders-only vote. The result: those Sanders-only voters are worth an extra five points to Clinton. In the NBC/WSJ poll, Clinton’s advantage over Trump goes from three points to eight points and she leads 51 percent to 43 percent.”
Maybe that’s why Clinton has canceled an event in New Jersey this week to spend more time in California, as NBC’s Kristen Welker reported on “Today” this morning.
Then again, one thing that Sanders has successfully done over the past month is move the goal posts while trailing Clinton by 270 pledged delegates and more than 700 overall delegates. Here was Sanders before New York’s primary, which he lost by 16 points: “We will win a major victory here in New York next Tuesday.” And here he was before the Pennsylvania primary, which he lost by 12 points: “You know what? I think we’re going to win here in Pennsylvania next week.” And here was Sanders on “Meet the Press” last Sunday: “I think we have a good chance to win in California, maybe win big, and maybe win four or five of the other states that are off on June 7th… California is the big enchilada, so to speak.”
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