Cruz, Kasich working California, but Trump hasn't set up shop here
Cruz, Kasich working California, but Trump hasn't set up shop here
April 10, 2016
Updated 11:38 a.m.
By MARTIN WISCKOL / STAFF WRITER
While Ted Cruz and John Kasich are gearing up their California campaigns, there is little indication that Donald Trump has given the state much thought – despite the June 7 primary’s potential to make or break his nomination.
The billionaire front-runner canceled a rally planned for Friday for his golf club in Rancho Palos Verdes, instead spending the time campaigning in New York for its April 19 primary. Cruz was in Orange County for a March 31 fundraiser and will be back Monday for an 11:30 a.m. rally at the Hotel Irvine.
Both Cruz and Kasich have been booked to speak at the California Republican Party’s convention at the end of the month, but there has been no word from Trump about the event.
“The theme of his campaign seems to be ‘Worry about today and tomorrow,’” said Lori Cox Han, a Chapman University political scientist. “And that could hurt him.”
Trump leads in the delegate count but could fall short of the 1,237 needed to win the Republican presidential nomination on the first ballot of the July convention in Cleveland. California’s 172 delegates are the most of any state and are key as Cruz and Kasich look to force the convention to subsequent ballots, when delegates no longer would be obligated to support their original candidate.
Although Cruz and Kasich are focused on that longer-range scenario, Trump’s campaign has given few such signals.
Besides his stops this year, Cruz visited Orange County at least three times in 2015. Trump has yet to visit Orange County, and Kasich swung by twice last year. The Kasich campaign has begun hiring staff in the state and said last week that it plans to open a headquarters here.
“The governor has said repeatedly that he’ll be in Cleveland in July, and he has no intention of stopping,” said campaign spokeswoman Emmalee Kalbach. “We’re in it to get to the convention and get the nomination.”
The Cruz campaign scoffed at Kasich’s recent plans for California.
“We have been mobilizing and building organization in California for eight months,” said Cruz national spokesman Ron Nehring, a former California GOP chairman. “The other campaigns have only recently discovered that America extends west of the Rockies. We’re ready for them.”
Trump’s campaign website lists contacts in 28 states, but not for delegate-rich California. The campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Irvine political strategist Jeff Corless, a Trump supporter, said he’s heard there are plans for the front-runner to campaign in the state, but those plans have not been made public. Trump announced Thursday the hiring of campaign veteran Paul Manafort as “convention manager” – a role that likely will include delegate outreach. But it remains to be seen if California now will get more attention from the campaign.
Strategy vs. charisma
Real Clear Politics’ aggregation of six recent polls shows Trump at 36 percent, Cruz at 28 percent and Kasich at 16 percent among California Republicans’ likely voters. That means Cruz is within striking distance – but he can pick off dozens of delegates even if he loses California, and his campaign appears poised to maximize that delegate count whether or not he prevails statewide.
“Cruz is the most organized – he has been organized from the beginning,” Chapman’s Han said.
The Republican winner of each of the state’s 53 congressional districts gets three delegates from the district. That accounts for 159 of the state’s GOP delegates. Ten more are awarded to the statewide winner. The remaining three are party leaders who arrive at the convention unobligated to any candidate.
Fullerton College political scientist Jodi Balma said Cruz already has displayed his ability to win by congressional district in Missouri, where he picked up delegates despite losing statewide. And the campaign understands that targeting highly Democratic districts can be a winning tactic in the primary.
For instance, the district of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, has 155,600 Republican voters who will deliver three delegates. But the 27,200 GOP voters in the district of Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, also will deliver three delegates.
That means a campaign can focus on districts with far fewer voters and win as many delegates as it can in heavily Republican districts. Only Republicans can vote in the GOP primary.
Cruz likely will have the money to campaign statewide, and effectively focusing that spending could pay big dividends.
“Cruz has run a smart ground game so far, and it’s really made a difference,” Han said.
Kasich, with fewer campaign funds, probably hopes to pick off a few delegates from Trump, Han said. That would make it harder for Trump to reach the 1,237-delegate threshold and could increase Kasich’s viability at a contested convention.
Also working against the front-runner are national anti-Trump efforts and a statewide anti-Trump campaign launched last week by Rob Stutzman, a former consultant to ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Whether the Cruz, Kasich and anti-Trump efforts will be enough to block the front-runner from reaching the delegate threshold is a big unknown. Trump has little or no organization in California at the moment, but he has shown he can fill meeting halls at a moment’s notice. The typical need to prepare months ahead of time may not be required for the billionaire reality TV star.
“The usual rules don’t seem to apply to Donald Trump,” Balma said. “At every single turn, there are steps and comments that would have destroyed another candidate, but he keeps on thriving.”
That’s because he has something that Cruz doesn’t, said Corless, the Irvine political strategist.
“As a strategist, I always recommend early planning,” he said. “But while Cruz has the mechanics in place, Donald Trump has created a national movement. Ted Cruz may be winning at insider political organizing, but Donald Trump is winning with voters.”
Loyalty issues
The Democratic matchup also could be undecided when the June primary takes place, and Han sees the potential for Bernie Sanders to do well in California, particularly if he can organize and motivate college students.
Hillary Clinton won the state’s 2008 primary, and many pundits predict that she’ll be a first-ballot nominee at the Philadelphia convention. Though Trump has yet to reach a majority of awarded delegates – he’s at 47 percent – Clinton has secured 62 percent of those committed so far, according to a Bloomberg tally.
In California, that means more attention has focused on the GOP primary.
Han and Balma are among those who doubt Trump will emerge as the GOP nominee if he fails to clinch the required 1,237 delegates before the convention.
“I think he has a real tough time at the convention because he’s been winning pluralities and not majorities,” Balma said.
Many conservatives are wary of some of Trump’s more controversial proposals. And his bipartisan past concerns many establishment Republicans, as do his unpredictability and polls showing he may be the weakest of the three remaining Republicans in the November general election.
But Cruz’s weaknesses, with Republicans and beyond, are underscored in polls that show he would lose to either Clinton or Sanders.
“I think more people are voting for Cruz as a vote against Trump rather than because they like Cruz,” Balma said.
That could open the door for Kasich or House Speaker Paul Ryan as the nominee to emerge from the convention.
Crucial to a contested convention is how malleable delegates will be in abandoning their original candidate. Cruz’s closed-door Orange County visit with about 100 potential delegates last week likely included some degree of vetting, Han said.
Prospective GOP delegates can apply to their preferred candidate’s campaign. Based on the election results in the congressional districts, the campaigns select their share of delegates from the applicant pool, with the hope they’ll remain faithful to the candidate as convention balloting goes on.
“Delegate loyalty is looking increasingly important,” Balma said. “There’s a lot of pressure at the convention as the issue comes down to who has the best chance of winning in November.”
In other words, winning delegates in the primaries and caucuses may be just the first round. Keeping those delegates on board through multiple ballots could prove decisive for candidates.
In more liberal Bay Area congressional districts, according to Politico.com, GOP operatives are finding Republicans “may be asking to sign on as Trump delegates not so much because of political passion but just for the experience of getting to the Republican National Convention ... which may turn into The Greatest Show on Earth.”
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/t...delegates.html
