Donald Trump has roared into the lead in the upcoming California Republican primary, bolstering his hopes of winning the GOP nomination and avoiding a nasty convention fight, a new poll has found.
In the first independent survey since it became apparent that the Golden State will play a major role in deciding the Republican presidential nominee, the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that Trump has the support of 38 percent of likely voters, while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is favored by 27 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich placed a distant third with 14 percentSo if the poll is on target and if the primary took place today, would Trump get 38 percent of the delegates? Not necessarily: indeed, the delegate count could diverge a great deal from the vote count.
California’s primary is a winner-take-all system by congressional district. The candidate who gets a plurality in any given district will receive all 3 delegate appointments for that district. Ten at-large delegates go to the candidate winning the greatest number of votes statewide. The state party chair, the national committeeman and national committeewoman also serve as delegates.
California has 53 districts, meaning that there are 159 district delegates. But GOP registration varies greatly, from a low of 27, 209 in the 13th district (Barbara Lee's constituency, encompassing Oakland and Berkeley) to a high of 175,401 in the 4th district (Tom McClintock's constituency, Northern suburbs of Sacramento). That's a six-to-one ratio, even though both districts have the same number of delegates.
A candidate could conserve resources, then, by targeting districts with lower GOP registration figures. In a hypothetical two-person matchup, a candidate could win a majority of district delegates with just one-third of the overall vote. These low-GOP registration districts tend to be Democratic: of the 35 that have fewer than 100,000 Republicans, only one (the 21st district in the Central Valley) sends a Republican to the House (David Valadao). Most of these districts also have heavy concentrations of Hispanic or African American voters.
Ironically, then, the primary contest between Trump and Cruz could end up depending on which one does better in the kind of districts that would never support them in the general election.
David Siders writes at The Sacramento Bee:
In an effort to deny him the nomination, Cruz, a favorite of evangelicals and tea party conservatives, is expected to compete with Trump for delegates in the Central Valley and northern reaches of the state. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a more moderate Republican, could do well in coastal districts, including in the Bay Area.
“The fact of the matter is this is an unprecedented event for California,” said Robert Molnar, an adviser to former state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who is working for Kasich in the state. “So the idea that anybody has this great idea and plan of how it’s going to turn out, they’re just lying to you.”
If the presidential primary remains undecided when it reaches California, it will be the first time the state’s June election has been decisive in a presidential primary since California went for George McGovern as the Democratic nominee in 1972.
| US Congressional 13 | 27,209 | |
| US Congressional 34 | 28,560 | |
| US Congressional 12 | 30,619 | |
| US Congressional 40 | 31,204 | |
| US Congressional 44 | 34,870 | |
| US Congressional 37 | 35,887 | |
| US Congressional 29 | 40,112 | |
| US Congressional 51 | 45,395 | |
| US Congressional 17 | 50,507 | |
| US Congressional 35 | 51,022 | |
| US Congressional 43 | 53,417 | |
| US Congressional 14 | 54,090 | |
| US Congressional 20 | 62,308 | |
| US Congressional 46 | 62,570 | |
| US Congressional 19 | 63,351 | |
| US Congressional 21 | 63,430 | |
| US Congressional 6 | 68,244 | |
| US Congressional 5 | 71,012 | |
| US Congressional 15 | 73,125 | |
| US Congressional 16 | 73,439 | |
| US Congressional 32 | 77,909 | |
| US Congressional 28 | 79,134 | |
| US Congressional 2 | 81,006 | |
| US Congressional 18 | 81,485 | |
| US Congressional 41 | 82,101 | |
| US Congressional 11 | 82,514 | |
| US Congressional 38 | 84,589 | |
| US Congressional 53 | 89,400 | |
| US Congressional 31 | 89,624 | |
| US Congressional 30 | 91,555 | |
| US Congressional 27 | 96,116 | |
| US Congressional 9 | 97,078 | |
| US Congressional 3 | 98,062 | |
| US Congressional 47 | 98,505 | |
| US Congressional 36 | 99,204 | |
| US Congressional 8 | 103,316 | |
| US Congressional 26 | 108,255 | |
| US Congressional 24 | 115,186 | |
| US Congressional 10 | 116,031 | |
| US Congressional 52 | 120,099 | |
| US Congressional 33 | 120,265 | |
| US Congressional 42 | 126,455 | |
| US Congressional 7 | 128,064 | |
| US Congressional 39 | 131,656 | |
| US Congressional 25 | 136,276 | |
| US Congressional 49 | 136,307 | |
| US Congressional 22 | 139,518 | |
| US Congressional 23 | 139,605 | |
| US Congressional 50 | 143,522 | |
| US Congressional 1 | 153,220 | |
| US Congressional 45 | 160,511 | |
| US Congressional 48 | 164,919 | |
| US Congressional 4 | 175,401 | |
