Clinton, Sanders look to mobilize complacent Calif. voters
"Most people know in their gut that Hillary is the most experienced," says LaVaccare, a 47-year-old health care consultant and political fundraiser who is organizing volunteers for Clinton in the fiercely contested 28th Congressional District in Los Angeles County.
While Clinton needs a mere 71 delegates from several states voting on June 7 to claim the Democratic nomination, the fight against rival Bernie Sanders in California has grown increasingly contentious as the Vermont senator gains in polling.
[...] there is scant glamour in the operational innards of a campaign, grinding far from the stage lights and clamoring crowds of campaign rallies, in living rooms, on street corners and spartan leased offices.
The Sanders gambit: parlay a surge of new, younger voters who polls show lean to the Vermont senator into a win, or strip away crucial delegates from Clinton that he will bring to the party's convention.
The fight for votes in California is being waged in places like a union office in Los Angeles, where Clinton supporters make phone calls beneath a U.S. flag and a homemade "I'm with Hillary" poster, or a folding table on a bustling commercial strip in Burbank, where Kellerman, the Sanders organizer, works to register voters.
Both campaigns have an eye on newly registered voters who this spring will exceed 2 million, more than double the level for the same period in presidential elections in 2008 and 2012, according to research firm Political Data Inc.