A8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAy, MARCH 2 , 2020
BY SCOTT WILSONsan jose — Tampa Way here in
east San Jose was concrete-solid
Hillary Clinton country four
years ago.
But Ivan Aguilar, 27, is trying to
change that. The political science
student took a months-long sab-
batical to work the streets for Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). On a re-
cent warm Sunday, he knocked
on doors of homes filled with
families who commute an hour or
so to five-figure jobs in Silicon
Valley.
“When it comes to this kind of
canvassing, it’s a numbers game,”
Aguilar said, a list of registered
Democrats in hand, along with
placards and door hangers in
English and Spanish. “You knock
on 50 doors, and maybe you get 10
to 20 conversations. But a few can
really matter.”
Aguilar’s o rganizing is part of a
concerted, years-long effort by
Sanders to gin up a decisive
victory in California’s presiden-
tial primary. The state’s usually
beside-the-point voters could
play a key role in the Democratic
nominating process this year.
There are 415 delegates at stake
here Tuesday, the largest haul on
a day when 14 other states and
territories will also go t o the polls.
Sanders is hoping that a big
victory could help him run up a
sizable delegate lead against his
rivals.
The campaign has a state orga-
nization far larger than those of
his opponents — 22 offices and
more than 100 paid staffers. And
it has been targeting Latinos,
Asian Americans and young vot-
ers, key demographics in the
Democratic electorate.
“The Sanders people looked at
the primary with a long view and
not just as a momentum play,”
said Steven Maviglio, a Demo-
cratic political consultant who is
not working for any candidate
and said he has yet to decide
whom he will choose in the pri-
mary.
“They actually invested in
door-knocking, which if you no-
tice some analysts talking about
how to win California, they have
really discounted that ground ac-
tivity,” he said. “But this seems to
have worked, and it appears to
have poked awake the sleeping
giant of the Latino vote.”
A Suffolk University/USA To -
day poll showed Sanders with a
double-digit lead. He was at
35 percent among likely Demo-
cratic primary voters, well ahead
of former New York mayor Mike
Bloomberg at 16 percent, former
vice president Joe Biden at 14
percent and Sen. Elizabeth War-
ren (D-Mass.) at 12 percent. The
percentages matter because a
candidate who fails to win 15 per-
cent of the vote statewide re-
ceives no delegates.
A candidate must also reach
the 15 percent threshold in a
congressional district to win dis-
trict delegates, which account for
two-thirds of those allocated. Hit-
ting that mark could be especially
challenging this year because the
Democratic field is unusually
large.
It is harder to measure how
Sanders is doing district by dis-
trict, how well his democraticsocialist message is playing in
parts of Silicon Valley or wealthy,
tax-averse Southern California
counties. It’s hard, too, to know
whether he’ll be able to turn out
the broad, new c oalition, some-
thing he has struggled to do in
some early states.
Officials say they’re confident.
“The campaign really prioritized
California in a way that we hadn’t
before,” said Rafael Návar, the
Sanders campaign’s state direc-
tor. “Most people looked at the
first four states. I looked at it as
five states, and so California had a
prioritization from the start.”
One key rival for Sanders is
Warren, who is hovering around
the 15 percent vote threshold,
according to some recent polls.
Her campaign has about half as
many staff members on the
ground as Sanders.
“California’s a progressive
state, and Elizabeth Warren is a
progressive candidate,” said Kev-
in Liao, the campaign’s state
spokesman. “She’s a good fit for
the values of the state.”
Julián Castro, a former Obama
Cabinet member who dropped
out of the Democratic primary
race earlier this year, recentlyappeared at a Warren event in
San Francisco that drew about
150 staff members, volunteers
and others.
It seems part of an effort to cut
into Sanders’s lead among Lati-
nos, especially older ones less
liberal on issues of ethnic identity
and more suspect of Sanders’s
Medicare-for-all proposal. Sever-
al polls show Sanders drawing
nearly half the state’s Latino sup-
port.
Warren plans to speak Mon-
day, on the eve of the primary, in
East Los Angeles to an audience
of Latino building services work-
ers.
Some of his better-funded ri-
vals have also looked hopefully
toward television. California is a
place where intensive advertising
usually proves essential in win-
ning statewide races. But those
rich enough to afford big buys in
multiple markets are then often
resented, especially the self-fi-
nanced candidates.
In 1994, then-Rep. Michael
Huffington spent more than
$40 million of his family’s oil
fortune in an unsuccessful bid to
beat Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-
Calif.). Sixteen years later, MegWhitman, the billionaire former
eBay chief executive, invested
$144 million of her own money in
losing to Jerry Brown.
This year, two billionaires in
the presidential race have been
dominating the air. Bloomberg
and investor To m Steyer, who
dropped out after a poor perfor-
mance Saturday in the South
Carolina primary, have been
ubiquitous in recent weeks on
California television, popular
YouTube channels and other me-
dia. Warren plans a homestretch
run of radio advertising, in part
to save her resources for later.
But it’s not clear whether en-
dorsements or heavy spending
will dent Sanders’s lead, nor
whether Biden’s surge in South
Carolina will itself alter the tra-
jectory of California.
Biden has spent little time in
the state, traveling here more for
fundraising than for organizing.
In east Santa Clara County and
farther north, up through Alame-
da County, home of Oakland,
Democrats outnumber Republi-
cans by more than 5 to 1. The East
Bay is highly diverse ethnically,
and the Sanders team is looking
for every one of those votes.
A recent day started for the
campaign staff with Spanish-lan-
guage outreach, door to door,
then moved to a Black Forum on
Economic Justice in a cathedral
on the edge of Berkeley where the
city’s former mayor Gus Newport
represented the Sanders cam-
paign before an almost entirely
African American audience of
about 150.
About 6 percent of the elector-
ate is African American, a demo-
graphic Biden has targeted, espe-
cially in his successful campaign
effort in South Carolina.
His campaign did not send a
representative to the forum.
“I know this is the time when
we start to see these campaigns
and candidates pandering for Af-
rican American votes,” said the
forum’s co-host Patricia Brooks, a
digital strategy consultant, look-
ing out over the pews. “I see a lot
of heads nodding out there. I
mean, where do they go a fter they
win?”
The day ended with a celebra-
tion at Sanders’s downtown Oak-
land headquarters, where about
60 or so Iranian Americans gath-
ered to endorse the campaign.Both Alameda and Santa Clara
County went for Clinton four
years ago, and Aguilar is door-
knocking to find out how Sanders
might take her place this time.
His pitch in Spanish is basic.
Start with the day of the vote, ask
whether they have heard of Sand-
ers, then come with the sub-
stance: Medicare-for-all, an end
to college debt, a push for more
affordable housing, tax reform to
close the gap between those with
and the many without.
These are California issues, as
well as the nation’s. He doesn’t
mention other candidates.
“More than anything, it’s the
issue of income inequality that
resonates most,” Aguilar said.
“It’s more like an umbrella term
that covers health insurance, the
rich paying too little in taxes.
Income inequality captures all of
it, and it’s the one thing people
really want to talk about.”
Aguilar leaves bilingual door
hangers at the first few homes,
where nobody was there. “Nues-
tro Futuro,” the brochure reads,
facing out with a photo of the
smiling senator.
At 1924 Ta mpa Way, Francisco
Escorcia opens the grated front
door. He is registered to vote, and
when Aguilar starts talking about
college affordability, Escorcia,
who builds gas stations for a
living, lights up. He has three
children — a ges 7, 1 4 and 21 — a nd
school costs are a major worry.
Escorcia is 47, at t he very upper
edge of the typical young Latino
Sanders supporter. He chose
Clinton last time, but he says, “I
really do like what you are saying
now.”
Aguilar marks him down as a
strong likely supporter.
A few houses down, Gonzalo
Burgara, who is 46 and works in
construction, listens to Aguilar’s
pitch. He is not a citizen, only a
resident, and cannot vote. But his
18-year-old son can, and Aguilar
offers to drive him to the voter
registration center once he gets
home.
Burgara agrees to send along
his son. Te n minutes later, as
Aguilar passes Burgara’s green
work truck, he sees that the newly
acquired “Bernie” sticker is al-
ready on the bumper.
“That’s what I like to see,”
Aguilar said.
[email protected]Surging in California, Sanders looks to run up the score
Years of organizing in
delegate-rich state could
give him decisive winSALWAN GEORGES/THE WASHINGTON POST
Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders pack a San Jose rally Sunday. One poll has him leading in California
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