June 7 Primary Elections: Live Coverage And Results
Jun 7, 2016 Harry Enten 8:32 AM

Clinton Won Among Early California Voters, And Never Let Go

As my colleague Micah noted, Clinton has been called the winner in California by the AP and pretty much all the major news networks with 94 percent of precincts reporting. Her lead at this hour stands at 13 percentage points and a little over 400,000 votes out of more than 3 million cast. How’d she do it?

Clinton built a tremendous lead in the state from early mail-in votes, and she never relinquished it. Just after midnight, Clinton was up by 26 percentage points with over a million votes counted. By the time all the early vote was in, she was able to take that advantage up to about 400,000. That margin stayed remarkably consistent as more and more of the in-person vote was tabulated. In other words, Sanders fought Clinton to a draw among voters who cast their ballot at the polls yesterday, but the damage had been done by early voters, who tend to be older and more traditional party loyalists.

Clinton’s victory was larger than most public pollsters anticipated. Why? It’s not entirely clear, though it’s not because Sanders’s voters didn’t come out to vote once news organizations called Clinton the presumptive nominee on Monday night. In fact, it seems pollsters missed Clinton’s large early voting advantage. The illustrious Field Poll, for instance, had Clinton ahead by only 7 percentage points among those who had cast a ballot by late May, which was clearly too low. A large exit poll of voters who had cast their ballot by mail as of June 4, conducted by Sextant Strategies & Research, had her up only 12 percentage points, which again was far too low.

What is clear is that Clinton did very well across the state. She is leading in all the major population centers, .............