LOS ANGELES — Hillary Clinton’s campaign had once hoped the California primary could be a coronation for the former secretary of State, the last major stop en route to claiming the Democratic presidential nomination.

Instead, it has turned into a dogfight with Bernie Sanders, who has been campaigning nonstop through the state. With at least one public poll showing the race now a tie, the Clinton campaign has decided to step up her appearances in the state.

“It’s going to be closer than we thought,” said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a longtime Clinton backer, adding that he ultimately expected her to win the state.

“Hillary’s going to be the nominee, but California’s the big prize, and obviously she’d like to go into the convention with a win in California,” he said.

Clinton does not need to win California to clinch the nomination. She now has 2,310 delegates to this summer’s nominating convention, according to the latest count, and needs only 73 more for a majority.

By the time California and five other states vote on June 7, Clinton will need only a few of the 694 pledged delegates up for grabs that day.

Despite all that, a loss in this enormous, diverse, overwhelmingly Democratic state would be an ugly stain in the lead-up to the party’s convention in July in Philadelphia.

Clinton was widely expected to win California this year by about 8 percentage points, the same margin by which she beat then-Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 primary. She and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have forged strong ties to the state’s Democrats during their decades in public life.

Bill Clinton clinched his 1992 Democratic nomination in California.