California Nation: How Bernie Sanders could have a good election night on the West Coast

Bernie Sanders has consistently led the pack in recent polls of likely California primary voters.

The Golden State has traditionally taken weeks to count votes, given the size of the state and high number outstanding ballots after election night.

But Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan voter data firm Political Data, Inc., sees a path for Sanders to claim a quick victory.

California’s early voting system allows people to begin casting ballots on Feb. 3 — a month before the state’s March 3 presidential primary election. The first wave of results that come in after the polls close at 8 p.m. represent a more conservative and wealthy group, which is less likely to skew toward Sanders. But if Sanders gets an early lead when votes come in, Mitchell thinks the race is essentially over.

“If you see that first number and Bernie Sanders is winning, then it’s off to the races like this thing’s over,” Mitchell said on The Bee’s California Nation podcast. “If you see that first number and maybe Bloomberg and Biden are high and Buttigieg is high, then you could say, ‘OK, we might be in for a long night here trying to figure this out.’”

Sanders’ campaign has aggressively courted young, Latino voters and is believed to perform well with those groups in California. But since his supporters may identify as independents or be less likely to case ballots in a primary race, Sanders recently expressed worries that they may not have the information they need to support him because of the state’s complex voting processes.

People registered without a party preference can only vote in the Democratic primary if they request a Democratic ballot.

“Unfortunately, under the current NPP participation rules, we risk locking out millions of young people, millions of young people of color, and many, many other people who wanted to participate in the Democratic primary but may find it impossible for them to do so, and that seems, to me, to be very, very wrong,” Sanders told reporters before a rally in Santa Ana last week.

This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 3:01 AM with the headline "California Nation: How Bernie Sanders could have a good election night on the West Coast."