California Governor Jerry Brown, attending the Democratic National Convention, said Tuesday that Donald Trump could actually win the election, and Hillary Clinton might actually lose.
Brown addressed the convention Wednesday, as the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times tracking poll showed Donald Trump increasing his lead to over 7 percent during the convention.
It is a theme Brown has stressed repeatedly. In a recent fundraising email to his supporters, for example, he warned, “Poll after poll is showing that Trump has been eating away at our lead, and after his convention, he’s erased it entirely.”
Brown was asked after arriving in Philadelphia if Clinton should be nervous about her sagging numbers. Brown told The Hill, “Of course,” describing the race as “very tight, very tight.”
Brown kept an unusually low profile during the Democratic Party’s nominating process, which began in early 2015. Perhaps hoping to be “drafted” for the nomination if Hillary Clinton’s campaign collapsed, he did not endorse Clinton until a week before the June 7 California primary. Normally a ferocious campaigner for his endorsed candidates, Brown only sent out a few letters and gave a few interviews to help Clinton in California.
Brown seemed unwilling to go full-throttle against the still active “Feel the Bern” movement, which in primary and caucus contests went straight at every Democrat governor, senator or representative that came out early and strongly for Clinton.
Brown’s tepid support may have helped Clinton beat Sanders by 55.8 percent to 43.2 percent to clinch the Democrat nomination by winning 254 of California’s 475 delegates.
But at the Philadelphia convention, the 221 California delegates Sanders won in the Golden State were among the boisterous leaders of the July 26 protest that saw hundreds of hardcore “Berners” streaming onto the arena’s main concourse chanting “WALK OUT, WALK OUT” when Hillary Clinton won the roll call vote.
Despite the Democratic Party’s efforts to contain and prevent further protests, it is expected Hillary Clinton will be booed during her nomination acceptance speech Thursday.
The usually passionate Brown gave a July 27 speech that sounded more like an elder statesman acknowledging Clinton’s resume, which he contrasted with Donald Trump’s undisciplined populism. Brown’s strongest comments were, “While Trump talks and talks and talks, Hillary does stuff.” He added, “She fights for us on the big issues.”
Later in the evening, Brown told the Los Angeles Times, “I trust the Clintons, given their experience, in ways that I would never trust Trump.”
But since Brown claims that he does not trust Trump at all, he just seemed to distrust Hillary a little less.
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