Bernie Sanders in California with Latinos

Early into the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton dominated the deep South, whereas Bernie Sanders has won most states in which the African-American population numbered no more than 10 percent. Excluding Clinton's 10 early landslide wins in the South, Bernie Sanders currently leads 17 to 13 in the remaining States that have also already voted outside of the deep South.

And of those he lost outside of the deep South, Bernie lost 4 States by narrow margins — of which 2 were razor-thin. Meaning, with rising polls numbers, maybe if those 4 states had voted later, maybe Sanders might have won them as well — and he would currently lead Clinton 21 to 9 in States outside of the deep South.

Sanders does better with Independents, who were locked out from many primaries because of the party's registration rules in some States. The upcoming Indiana is an open primary, meaning that independents who have been a particular source of strength for Sanders are allowed to vote in the Democratic primary without first needing to re-register as Democrats. For that matter, even registered Republicans could vote in the Democratic primary in Indiana, though they would be automatically re-registered as Democrats.

The upcoming California primary has triggered a surge in new voter registrations and they are overwhelmingly young, Democratic and Latino, according to Paul Mitchell, who runs a political data firm in Sacramento. Some of those voters may be drawn by the promise of voting for Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, but some may be registering to vote against Trump in November.

According to the latest poll for California, a Fox News poll shows Clinton is up by just two points over Sanders among "likely Democratic primary voters" (48-46 percent). A year ago Bernie trailed Clinton by 50 points in California.

It appears that California is going to do two things on June 7th — decide who the ultimate winner is in popular votes in both the Republican and Democratic primary -- but -- in all probability, no candidate in either party will have enough pledged delegates to win an outright nomination set by each party's rules. And that will be decided in their summer conventions come July.

Yesterday at the National Press Club, before answering questions from reporters, Bernie Sanders explained how he can still win the Democratic nomination and why he believes he has a better chance than Hillary Clinton to defeat Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the general election (We didn't see this on cable news, but we did see portions of a Trump rally).

So between now at June 7th there will still be a lot of campaigning, polling, politicking and deals being made. Which also means, there will also be a lot more corporate propaganda and media bias on the cable news and Sunday shows to best favor their preferred candidates — while the media blackout will continue on Bernie Sanders, or if only mentioning negative comments on Sanders's campaign.

Independents (those with no party affiliation) are allowed to vote in California's primary, who by far, is the State with the largest number of delegates of all 50 states. And in open primaries with Independents, but with low populations of African-American voters, this is where Bernie Sanders does the best (it's just a demographic fact, not an opinion).

Sanders exceeds both Clinton and Trump with Independents combined. And other major determining factors is younger and first-time voters, where Sanders also exceeds Clinton. Even in New York's closed primary where Clinton won, exit polls showed that Sanders carried 72 percent of those Democrats who considered themselves to be Independent voters.

And then, most importantly, the Latino vote. California has the largest population of Latinos than any other state, representing 38.6% of the the State's population. By comparison, African-Americans (who mostly favor Clinton) only make up 6.5% of California's population.

• The L.A. Times reports "The Latino population is relatively young, with a median age of about 29." (Good for Bernie)
• The L.A. Times reports: "In California, she [Clinton] is losing voters younger than 50 by 15 points." (Good for Bernie)

On CBS' "Face the Nation Bernie Sanders acknowledged that of the 10 remaining states to vote, several are favorable territory for him — especially California, which he said "happens to be the most progressive state in this country."

And Bernie Sanders might be polling better with Latinos than Clinton does (and Trump and his wall don't even compare to either Democratic candidate.) On April 14th, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that California Latinos are registering to vote in unprecedented numbers and this may be good news for Sanders. California Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said: "Something unusual is going on in the Latino community. You’re seeing a reappraisal of Clinton vis-a-vis Sanders. Now it is up for grabs."

California is where Sanders should have some of the most favorable circumstances (an open primary, no party affiliation voters, a low Black population, a very young electorate, a huge spike in new registrations and first-time voters, a very liberal State, with a huge Latino population, etc.) all working in his favor. Bernie can win YUGE there, and why the Democratic Party, the corporate media, and the Clintons all wanted him to call it quits early and "unify the party" long before California voted.

The problem with that is, The "Berniecrats" are already unified, and 25% of them (under no circumstances) will vote for Clinton. So if the Democrats want to use Trump as a scare tactic, they'd be better off telling Clinton's supporters to vote for Sanders, who beats Trump by wider margins.

To win, Sanders will have to woo “no party preference” voters as well as Hispanics and women. If he can do that, California is ripe for Bernie Sanders — and could theoretically bring him back from the abyss.

Otherwise, there's always PLAN B. From The Hill:

The deadline for procuring sufficient signatures to be on the November ballot [as an Independent] has yet to pass in almost all the states. So what happens if a Sanders independent run means no one [Clinton, Sanders or Trump] gets to the required 270 electoral votes to win, and the process is thrown to the House of Representatives, where each state gets a single vote? Who knows what would happen? Maybe some disgruntled Republicans would rather vote for Sanders than Clinton or Trump. You could probably build a coalition for Sanders more easily than either Clinton or The Donald. Perhaps the Clinton campaign needs to figure out a way to be as overt as possible in their praise of Sanders and their embrace of his crowd-energizing and youth-enthusing platform. Maybe hell hath no fury like a progressive warrior scorned, and that fury could manifest itself in a run. And a lot of uncharted and charred territory might lie in the wake of an America feeling the Bern.

*Bernie Sanders has always been very strong on Latino rights — Bernie Sanders Sobre Derechos Hispanos — His official website (Es)