A second poll this week shows

Sen. Bernie Sanders leading the

Democratic presidential race in
California, the biggest prize of the
crucial March 3 Super Tuesday
primaries.

Sanders outpaces his presidential

rivals in claiming about a quarter
of likely Democratic primary
voters, 24 percent, according to
a new Monmouth University Poll.
Sanders is followed by former Vice
President Joe Biden at 17 percent,
former New York City Mayor Mike
Bloomberg at 13 percent,
Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 10
percent and former South Bend,
Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 9
percent.

It’s the latest indication that

Sanders is likely to seize a plurality
of California’s 495 delegates,
vindicating a long-standing focus
on a state that his team has long
called critical to the nomination.
Sanders has built a ground
operation rivaled only by
Bloomberg’s self-subsidized
network, and his campaign is
banking on turning out Latinos
and other low-propensity voters,
including in typically passed over
areas.
That strategy is paying off, the
Monmouth tally suggests, with
Sanders handily outperforming
other Democrats among young
and Latino voters. Biden is the first
choice of African Americans.

A victory for Sanders in vote-rich

California on March 3, combined
with his opponents struggling to
surpass the threshold to win
delegates, could set up Sanders to
amass a commanding delegate
lead after Super Tuesday.

But the Monmouth poll also

suggests a tighter outcome than
the one predicted by a Public
Policy Institute of California
survey earlier this week, which
showed Sanders pulling away from
the pack and opening up a double-
digit lead over a second-place
cluster of Democrats.

While both polls show Sanders

with a plurality and well short of
an outright majority, California’s
proportional allocation system
make the exact delegate count
difficult to predict. Candidates can
scoop up delegates if they break 15
percent in any congressional
district; a separate statewide
basket is distributed
proportionally to every candidate
who breaks 15 percent statewide.
If the vote is fractured such that
only one or two candidates secure
15 percent of the entire California
electorate, they would be the only
ones to claim statewide delegates
— a scenario that’s looking
increasingly likely given the still-
muddled field.

“As the poll currently stands, it’s

possible that only two or three
candidates reach viability in any
given congressional district,”
Monmouth University Polling
Institute director Patrick Murray
said in a statement. “That would
enable Sanders to rack up half the
delegates or more while only
earning one-quarter of the total