US election 2016: Clinton and Sanders vie for the Hispanic vote as California primary approaches

The former Secretary of State has overshadowed Mr Sanders in states with large Hispanic populations, but in California her lead among Latinos is down to a handful of percentage points

Hillary Clinton hosts a discussion on immigration with Latino and Asian voters at Mission College near Los Angeles (AP)

As he took the stage at the Casa del Mexicano cultural centre in Boyle Heights on Saturday afternoon, Bernie Sanders began by tying his experiences to those of his audience in this historic Latino neighbourhood of Los Angeles. The presidential hopeful is the son of a Polish immigrant, he explained, who was “a proud American because of the opportunities this country gave him.”

While his bid for the Democratic nomination may be nearing its end, the progressive Vermont Senator is hoping for a photo-finish at Tuesday’s primary in California, where his month-long campaign slog has slashed Hillary Clinton’s poll lead to within the margin of error, and given the 74-year-old a healthy Golden State tan in the process.

The Hispanic vote is key to the California result, which is why both Mr Sanders and Ms Clinton made their case on immigration at campaign events throughout the weekend. Latinos comprise a larger share of the state’s population than non-Hispanic whites, and in 2008 Ms Clinton swept the California primary in part by winning twice as many Hispanic votes as Barack Obama.

This year, however, the picture is not so clear. The former Secretary of State has tended to overshadow Mr Sanders in states with large Hispanic populations, such as Florida, Arizona, Texas and New York. But in California her lead among Latinos is down to just a handful of percentage points.

Mr Sanders believes his progressive policy promises – a $15 (£10.40) minimum wage, criminal justice reform, free college tuition – ought to appeal to a Latino community that is largely working-class. But the Hispanic vote is itself diverse, consisting of multiple immigrant communities whose voting preferences are not always uniform.

During this year’s Democratic primary race, the starkest divide has been generational. A poll released last week by USC Dornsife and the Los Angeles Times found that Ms Clinton dominated among older Latino voters by 69 to 16 per cent, while Mr Sanders led among Latino voters younger than 50, by 58 to 31 per cent.

Sanders greets people outside Aunt Mary's Cafe in Oakland (GETTY)

“Bernie’s campaign resonates with the young because so much of the insecurity about the future rests with that generation,” said Arizona congressman Raúl Grijalva, who joined the Senator at the Boyle Heights town hall event. “They’re more progressive. In this election, people aren’t just voting for somebody because they know them. It’s a fight about ideas.”

Both candidates are broadly aligned on immigration policy, but Ms Clinton faces criticism from activists for her part in the Obama administration. President Obama has tried and failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform and taken executive action to defer deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants. Yet he has also presided over a record 2.5 million deportations.

Like Mr Sanders, Ms Clinton has vowed to curb those deportations. Speaking in Oxnard, California at the weekend, she also pointed out that she had voted for a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2007, which Mr Sanders opposed. “That ended what many people... said at the time was the best chance we had. It was heartbreaking,” she said.

For his part, Mr Sanders claims the 2007 bill would have allowed further exploitation of low-income immigrant workers. His supporters also hark back to a 1996 immigration act, signed by Ms Clinton’s husband, then-President Bill Clinton, which dramatically lowered the bar for deportation of undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants who committed crimes.

On Sunday, it was former President Clinton’s turn to campaign on behalf of his wife in Boyle Heights, where he was introduced by Kevin de León, president of the California state senate, and by LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is himself half-Mexican. Mr Clinton pointed out that Ms Clinton and her challenger had voted the same way 93 per cent of the time when she was in the US Senate.

Speaking to a modest crowd in Mariachi Square, where the traditional bands for which it is named still gather daily, Mr Clinton was interrupted by shouts from a group of Sanders supporters. “I don’t want to pick a fight,” he said of the hecklers, “but if I were them I’d be screaming too, because… they’re toast for election day.”

LA Congressman Xavier Becerra has also endorsed Ms Clinton. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he warned Sanders supporters that any Democratic president would be more likely to improve immigrant rights than a Republican, let alone the GOP’s presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. “Don’t compare me to the Almighty,” he said. “Compare me to the alternative.”

Protesters gather outside the San Jose convention centre where Donald Trump held a rally (GETTY)

In spite of their increasingly fractious rivalry, Ms Clinton and Mr Sanders have both reserved their strongest criticism for the billionaire Republican, whose California rallies have been met with protests that, in some cases, turned violent. “I will do whatever I can to combat the bigotry and ignorance of Donald Trump,” Mr Sanders said on Saturday.

Regardless of how they vote in Tuesday’s primary, Mr Trump’s race-baiting rhetoric and his promise to build a wall the length of the US-Mexican border have ensured that California Latinos are more likely than ever to turn out for the Democratic nominee in November.

High school student Tiffany Fernandez, a Sanders supporter who had brought her mother to the Boyle Heights town hall, said she would vote for Ms Clinton in November if she was the nominee. “If Trump tries to compete in California for the presidential election,” she said, “he’s going to regret it.”