Cruz’s scheme to sink Trump in California

As we saw in Colorado — and North Dakota, and Louisiana, and elsewhere — Team Cruz is much, much better than Team Trump at understanding and taking advantage of each state’s distinctive primary or caucus rules to maximize its delegate tally.

But in California — the last and largest primary on the calendar — Cruz’s strategic superiority won’t just help the Texan pick up a few extra delegates. It could actually prove to be the difference between Trump clinching the nomination outright or falling short at the 11th hour, which would trigger a contested convention.

No wonder Cruz took a break Monday from campaigning in New York to visit Irvine and San Diego on his most extensive Golden State swing to date.

“This is the birthplace of the Reagan revolution — and let me tell ya, there’s a new revolution brewing,” Cruz told thousands of supporters at the Hotel Irvine.

“Just like in 1980, it’s gonna be California that’s gonna decide, California that’s gonna lead the way.”

This isn’t just idle chatter. To secure the nomination on June 7, Trump will have to win roughly 70 percent of California’s delegates. But the state’s primary is a little quirky — and all those quirks favor the senator from Texas.

To find out more, Unconventional sat down after the Irvine rally with Mike Schroeder, the former state GOP chairman who’s now serving as Cruz’s political director in California.

“This is the last stand,” Schroeder said. “This is the battleground. And I think we’re going to win California — but even if we don’t, Trump is not going to get to 70 percent of the vote.”

Why is Schroeder so confident? First of all, only Republicans can cast ballots on June 7. No independents or Democrats. That’s good for Cruz (who does best with conservatives) and bad for Trump (who does best with moderates).

Secondly, California is winner-take-all by congressional district (plus three unpledged delegates and an additional 10 that will be awarded to the statewide champ). Not only is this a boon for the most organized candidate; it also blunts the impact of expensive ad buys (contrary to the conventional wisdom about California campaigns).

View photos
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz greets supporters at a campaign rally on April 11, 2016, in Irvine, Calif. (Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

“It requires a great deal more organization to conduct 53 elections than it does to conduct one statewide and just buy a lot of TV,” Schroeder said. “This is very blue state. So we’ll have some districts with only 5,000 Republican voters. I call them ‘empty districts’: maybe 2,000 voters will decide the result. That’s not even a good-size city council race. And yet you still get the same number of delegates — three — that you would in a district with 240,000 Republicans.”

The Cruz campaign has been organizing in California for a year. They have thousands of volunteers statewide. And an estimated 65 percent of primary participants are expected to vote early by mail — a process that begins in three weeks. “We’re going to talk to all of these people personally,” Schroeder said.

“We can pour calls into those empty districts.”
Also helping Cruz is the fact that the campaigns have to pick their own delegates — 172 of them, plus 172 alternates. The process of identifying six committed Cruz supporters in every single congressional district — including districts where Republicans haven’t really campaigned in decades — wasn’t easy. It took Schroeder five months. But now he’s finished — and the Trump campaign, which just hired a state political director today, is only getting started.

“It’s been a huge project for me,” Schroeder said. “And they have to file all of those names with the secretary of state on May 7? That’s less than a month from now. If you don’t have those names by May 7, even if you win that district, you don’t get any delegates.”

On Monday, Trump convention manager Paul Manafort accused the Cruz campaign of using “Gestapo tactics” to earn delegate support. Schroeder chuckled when he heard that.

“These are the rules,” Schroeder said. “They’re pretty simple. Follow them. Get over it. Stop whining.”

In California, he and Cruz could have the last laugh.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/unconvent...183429119.html