Scott Shafer reports at KQED that GOP consultant Rob Stutzman is organizing a Stop Trump effort in California.
But it’s a tricky and complicated strategy. The GOP allocates three delegates in each of California’s 53 congressional districts to whichever candidate wins a majority there. If Cruz and Kasich split the votes in any congressional district, it makes it easier for Trump to get the most votes and win those three delegates.
Stutzman’s group is analyzing polling data in each congressional district to see whether Cruz or Kasich have a better chance of coming in first. Then comes the hard part — convincing Cruz supporters to vote for Kasich where the Ohio governor runs strongest (like the San Francisco Bay Area) and educating Kasich supporters to vote for Cruz in the most conservative parts of California, where the Texas senator is strongest.
Success, Stutzman says, requires a sophisticated ground game and education campaign in every single congressional district. “The Republicans in Marin County and East L.A. are just as critical as the ones in Orange County and in Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s district in Bakersfield,” Stuztman said. Noting that conservatives in places like Marin aren’t used to hearing from their party, Stutzman joked, “Some Republican in West Hollywood is about to become very popular.”
At Field, Mark DiCamillo writes:
The latest Field Poll finds businessman Donald Trump leading Texas Senator Ted Cruz by seven points among likely voters in this state's Republican presidential primary. Trump is currently the choice of 39% of this state's likely GOP voters, while 32% support Cruz. Ohio Governor John Kasich trails in third at 18%, while 11% are undecided or intend to vote for someone else. T
The poll finds support for Trump and Cruz varying widely across major regions of the state. This is significant since 159 of California's 172 delegates to the Republican National Convention will be determined by who wins the most votes within each of the state's 53 congressional districts. While the poll cannot estimate who is leading within each congressional district, it does show that Trump is leading in two regions, while Cruz leads in two others. Should these regional differences persist, it would dilute the delegate advantages accrued by the winner of the June 7 California primary.
Another noteworthy feature of the poll is that many of Trump's current supporters in this state are the same voters who also backed another political outsider, Arnold Schwarzenegger, during his successful campaign for governor in California's historic 2003 recall election. Voters who say they voted for Schwarzenegger in 2003 prefer Trump over Cruz nearly three to one.
The contentiousness of this year's Republican presidential campaign has created deep divisions within the state's GOP rank-and-file. According to the poll, nearly four in ten California Republicans (38%) say they would be dissatisfied or upset were Trump to become their party's nominee, and nearly as many (34%) say this about Cruz
