Clinton has the delegates but needs CA, too

Today's primaries in California and five other states come at the same time the Associated Press is reporting Clinton has all but wrapped up the delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.

No matter what else happens today, says Dr. Charles Dunn, Clinton cannot afford to lose California.

"She may want to play it down," he says of a possible loss in the Golden State, where Clinton is averaging a two-point lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders.

"But as the difficulties of the depositions that some of her top staff in the State Department have had to give regarding constitutional legal violations," Dunn observes, "there's a lot that could potentially go south against her. "

According to the Associated Press, meanwhile, Clinton has reached the 2,383 delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.

She has 1,812 pledged delegates and the support of 571 superdelegates, the AP reported Tuesday.

The same story noted that Sanders told a California crowd Monday that a win in California would give him "enormous momentum" in his bid to push the primary contest to the party's convention. He also told reporters, however, that he planned to "assess" his campaign after today's primaries.

Tom Pauken, a former chairman of the Texas Republican Party, agrees that winning California would suggest that Clinton is doing well.

"Because she looks like a very flawed candidate that she barely is beating a socialist who came out of nowhere," Pauken says, referring to Sanders. 

The latest General Election polls at RealClearPolitics show Clinton averaging two points over Donald Trump in November. The compilation is pulled from seven polls in which Clinton leads five of them.