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Jennifer Medina, who is covering the presidential campaign from California, recently wrote about why Senator Kamala Harris doesn’t necessarily have a lock on the state. Here’s more about what she’s been hearing from voters:

California is famously known as an A.T.M. for national politicians, who often swing through to tap the state’s deep base of wealthy donors — and skitter out without facing a wider swath of voters at free public events. But in 2020, California will become an early voting state, one of the first places where Democrats will cast their vote in the primary election. So for the first time since 2008, the state’s voters are likely to play a decisive role in who becomes the party’s nominee.

And perhaps nobody is counting on California voters more than Senator Kamala Harris, a native-born California resident who has spent her entire career in the state. But none of the other candidates vying for the Democratic nomination are ceding the state to Ms. Harris — forcing her to spend significant money and energy to defend her home-state advantage. If she were to lose on her home turf, it would almost certainly be the end of her candidacy.

The Harris campaign has spent considerable energy lining up endorsements in the state, most notably from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was once seen as her most prominent political rival. But I was curious to hear from one of the most popular politicians in the state — one who has so far declined to back a single candidate: former Gov. Jerry Brown.

[Read more about California’s new prominence in the primaries.]

Speaking from his ranch in rural Northern California, Mr. Brown was his usual philosophical and loquacious self. Asked what he thought of the race so far, Mr. Brown said he hardly found it compelling, surmising that others agreed with him too.