Bernie Sanders’ latest California rally was thrown together in less than 24 hours, after bad weather forced him to cancel a planned campaign trip to Wyoming. But the event at the Wiltern theatre in Los Angeles was nonetheless a sell-out, with an overflow line stretching all the way down the block outside.
The Wiltern is more accustomed to hosting bands than presidential candidates, but the Vermont Senator received a rock star’s welcome. “We can argue about whether Vermont is more progressive than California,” he said as the cheers died down. “But I feel very comfortable here tonight.” Which is lucky, he might as well have added, since he’ll soon be spending a lot of time in the Golden State.
As the overwhelming winner of this week’s caucuses in Utah and Idaho, Mr Sanders nibbled ever so slightly into Hillary Clinton’s substantial delegate lead in the Democratic race, despite her victory in Arizona. But he has spent the past two days even further west, with rallies in San Diego and LA, where he also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show and YouTube political show The Young Turks.
The Sanders campaign plans to open offices across the state in the coming fortnight, and Mr Sanders is reportedly counting on his allies from California’s labour unions and environmental organisations to keep bringing large crowds to his rallies here. "The road to the White House goes right through the West," he told the crowd at the Wiltern, "and right through California".
Ms Clinton has also been in California this week, for a series of fundraisers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. But as if to highlight the differences between the two campaigns, entry to Mr Sanders’s LA rally was free, while the cheapest tickets to Ms Clinton’s celebrity-studded event at the Avalon nightclub in Hollywood on Thursday cost $500