Democrats to debate in California. Some of the state's controversial laws have divided the field

With 76 days left until California’s primary polls open, the seven presidential hopefuls who take the debate stage in Los Angeles on Thursday night will have a chance to make direct appeals to the Golden State's 8.6 million Democrats in their own backyard.

California Sen. Kamala Harris's exit from the Democratic primary race on Dec. 3 set off a scramble for supporters in her home state.

How the candidates address nationwide issues with particular relevance in California — including housing, cannabis and the gig economy — will offer insight into their strategy to win over Golden State voters, along with the 494 delegates California will award based on the results of Super Tuesday on March 3.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders; former Vice President Joe Biden; Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren; Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar; South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg; entrepreneur Andrew Yang; and businessman Tom Steyer will face off at 5 p.m. Pacific in the Politico/PBS Newshour debate, which will be broadcast on YouTube.

A KQED poll conducted Dec. 6-10 — one of the first after Harris dropped out of the race — showed Sanders leading with 26% of California’s likely Democratic primary voters, ahead of Warren (23%), Biden (19%), Buttigieg (12%) and the rest of the field, with a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

Here are a few California issues likely to be addressed:

The state’s new labor laws and the gig economy

California took direct aim at gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft when it passed the landmark labor law AB 5 in September. The measure codified and clarified a landmark state Supreme Court decision that limits whether companies can classify their workers as independent contractors.

Even though the bill was heralded as a win for unions, California Democrats haven't embraced it wholesale. In the lead-up to its Jan. 1 implementation, the trucking industry and a group of freelance journalists have filed lawsuits to challenge the law, claiming it discriminates against certain workers.

Still, AB 5 could be a sparring point between candidates, strategically elevated by those aiming to solidify their pro-labor perspectives.

Labor unions have played a big role in Warren’s campaign, which identifies empowering workers as a top priority. Not only does she support adopting AB 5 nationally, she would raise the stakes, making misclassification a labor violation and extending protections to undocumented workers.

Similarly, Sanders and Buttigieg have voiced support for expanding AB 5. Sanders has introduced parallel legislation at the federal level and Buttigieg dedicated part of his California campaign time to joining pro-AB 5 drivers as they protested in San Francisco before the bill's passage.

Yang has taken a different tack, signaling that his “Freedom Dividend” — a form of universal basic income that would put $1,000 a month directly into each person’s pocket — would render the discussion moot by empowering workers and transforming the labor market.

While Klobuchar has yet to offer specifics on the issue, she generally supports unionization efforts and stated that she’d rescind the federal guidelines she believes cause worker misclassification.

Steyer hasn’t said much at all on the issue.

Biden has promised to come down hard on employers caught misclassifying as independent contractors those who should be considered employees, but he hasn’t gone as far as the others calling for the changing the classification system itself. (The National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Labor have both found Uber drivers, for example, to be fairly classified as independent contractors.)

Regulating cannabis

“I thought you might have been high when you said it,” New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker told Biden on the debate stage in November. Booker’s canned one-liner was referring to Biden’s position on marijuana, which includes decriminalization but falls short of the federal-level legalization most of the field favors.

It's been three years since California voters approved Prop. 64, legalizing the cultivation and sale of cannabis for recreational use. A majority of viable Democratic candidates support changing the federal law that classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, alongside drugs like LSD and heroin.

But individual proposals on how the nation needs to overhaul its drug policies differ.

Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg, Yang, Steyer and Klobuchar support legalizing cannabis at the federal level. Sanders, Warren and Booker, who won’t appear at Thursday’s debate, support the Marijuana Justice Act, a bill written by Booker. The measure proposes withholding funding from states deemed to have “discriminatory enforcement.”

Klobuchar has not signed onto the bill, but supports another piece of legislation that would allow states to choose how they wish to legislate legalization policies, without the threat of federal punishment hanging over their heads.

Steyer, Yang and Buttigieg do not have legislative records regarding cannabis, but have all said they favor federal legalization. In August, Steyer said he supports legalization because the mismatch among state and federal laws creates problems for businesses in need of banking services.

The positions Buttigieg and Yang outline on their campaign websites largely align with those of Warren and Sanders, calling for expunging all cannabis use and possession-related criminal charges.

Biden will be the outlier on Thursday’s debate stage, as the one candidate who hasn’t come out in favor of outright federal legalization. At a November rally in Nevada, Biden suggested cannabis could be a “gateway drug,” but walked back the idea after facing pushback.

If elected, Biden will “leave decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states,” according to his campaign website. He supports expunging all convictions for use (but not possession) of cannabis and reallocating resources toward rehabilitation programs over prisons, much like recent laws passed by California lawmakers like AB 109 and Prop. 47 have done.

Climate, environment and carbon emissions

From wildfire policy to tailpipe emission standards, California has been on the front lines in the war Democrats are waging against Trump over carbon-related issues. While each of the candidates advocate reducing the nation's carbon footprint, they see different paths forward.

The plans outlined by Biden, Sanders, Steyer and Warren all call for offsetting carbon emissions to various degrees. Sanders wants to offset all emissions from transportation and electricity consumption and put the country on a path toward total decarbonization by 2050 through aggressively enforcing Environmental Protection Agency guidelines to limit carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Warren also calls for strengthening emissions standards for transportation and electricity and moving the country away from carbon and toward renewables.

Neither Sanders nor Warren are explicitly calling for taxes on carbon, and instead emphasize tax credits for businesses committed to renewables. At the CNN Climate Town Hall in September, Warren said she is in favor of a carbon tax.

Steyer has advocated for a cap-and-trade program similar to the system that has been in place in California since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it into law in 2006. Biden and Buttigieg have both expressed support for carbon pricing but have not specified plans thus far in the campaign. Under Yang’s plan, carbon emissions would be taxed up to $100 per ton. Klobuchar has said she’s open to taxing carbon emissions but would be concerned about the effect it could have on low-income consumers.

Health care top issue for Californians

Throughout much of the election cycle, health-care issues have exposed the field's ideological divides, signaling to voters whether a candidate falls into the party's progressive or centrist camp.

The issue is particularly relevant to California, which spends an eyebrow-raising $400 billion on health care annually, roughly $10,000 per person, and projects costs will increase in the coming years. A Public Policy Institute of California survey found statewide, voters care more about health care than any other issue, with 21% hoping to hear candidates address the topic in Thursday's debate.

To varying degrees, the candidates have embraced Medicare For All — the plan to create national universal health care system — and, going into Thursday's debate, most have settled on hybrid proposals that would preserve the role of private providers while expanding government-provided health care.

After saying she was "with Bernie" at the June debate in Miami, Warren has revised her health care platform and no longer advocates directly moving toward the government-backed insurance that Sanders' Medicare for All Senate bill proposes. She now advocates for a phased-in approach that begins with offering Americans the chance to opt-in to a national system, and gradually moving toward a national health care system.

Most of the candidates have proposed an opt-in system.

Biden, who supports an opt-in, has hitched himself to President Barack Obama's landmark Affordable Care Act and proposes updates to the policy to strengthen aspects that have been chipped away at under President Donald Trump.

Klobuchar and Steyer both call for a public option and expanding Medicare and Medicaid. On the campaign trail, Buttigieg has called his version of a public option "Medicare for All Who Want It," a stepping stone toward Medicare for All, and emphasizes how it preserves the role played by private insurers and providers to allow people who like their plans to keep them.

Rather than placing himself in either the national health care system camp or the public option camp, Yang has said he supports "the spirit" of Medicare for All. He believes overhauling the system could take years, so his plan calls for investing in innovations like tele-medicine and changing how doctors are paid and drug prices are negotiated.

The housing crisis

Across California, the housing crisis exists in plain view. Homelessness in the state accounts for roughly a quarter of the national number.

Sanders has made the issue a priority with his “Housing for All” plan that promises 9 million new affordable units, an increase in Section 8 vouchers, and national rent control standards. He also calls for a “tenants bill of rights” and improvements in public housing.

Warren promises to bring down rental costs by 10% across the country with a plan to increase the housing supply by 3.2 million units. She based the plan on a bill she already introduced that invests $500 billion over 10 years, financed by raising and extending the inheritance tax.

Klobuchar has proposed housing vouchers that help families pay rent, alongside investments in affordable housing. Buttigieg plans to build a database of affordable housing.

Steyer and Yang both focus on local zoning, shifting the impetus to states, and Biden proposes grants for housing infrastructure initiatives, awarded to those who will make homes more energy efficient. He also claims he will prioritize ensuring those who were formerly incarcerated have housing upon release, helping smooth their reentry.

Sam Metz covers politics. Reach him at samuel.metz@desertsun.com or on Twitter @metzsam. Gabrielle Canon is the USA Today Network's California reporter. Reach her at gcanon@gannett.com or on Twitter @GabrielleCanon.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democrats to debate in California. Some of the state's laws have divided the field