Cruz facing last stand in California primary
Texan will take a shot at winning state that has 172 delegates, more than any other
He’s down by more than 400 delegates, got swept Tuesday night in five GOP primaries by the juggernaut campaign of Donald Trump, and the former House speaker called him “Lucifer in the flesh.”
But Ted Cruz may have an ace up his sleeve: California. The state’s GOP primary race on June 7, the final day of the presidential primary season, is shaping up to be the Texas senator’s last stand of his tenacious run at the Republican nomination. At stake: 172 delegates — more than any other state’s GOP primary.
Even if he loses GOP races in Indiana and Nebraska in May, California’s large delegate count could help Cruz block Trump’s path to the nomination and force a contested convention in Cleveland in July, said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist. “California will be pivotal,” Jones said. “It has enough delegates that it could allow Cruz to turn the tables.”
Wednesday, Cruz announced former GOP rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate, even though he trails Trump in the race. Fiorina has a history in California politics, though not a particularly positive one. She lost a Senate race to Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer in 2010 by 10 percentage points.
Wednesday night, former House speaker John Boehner described Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh.” According to the Stanford
Daily, Boehner went on to say: “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with
“California is used to candidates treating us like their ATMs. ... Now our votes suddenly matter.” Thad Kousser, political science professor at the University of California- San Diego
almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
Trump leads the GOP candidates with 992 delegates, according to the Associated Press, less than 250 away from the 1,237 needed to clinch the nomination, followed by Cruz with 562 and Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 153.
Late in the calendar, California is usually an afterthought during primary season, a place where Republican presidential candidates hold fundraisers but otherwise pay scant attention. The last time the state’s GOP contest mattered was 1976, when Ronald Reagan won enough home-state delegates to challenge President Ford, said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California-San Diego. That contest led to the Republican Party’s last contested convention.
“California is used to candidates treating us like their ATMs — raising money but never asking for our votes,” Kousser said. “Now our votes suddenly matter.”
Trump is ahead in most polls in California and has the momentum of Tuesday’s wins. The state that introduced the world to the Kardashian family is likely to embrace Trump’s reality-television-style campaign. But the New York real estate mogul will face a Cruz campaign that has been organizing here since last summer.
Last year, Cruz recruited former California Republican Party chairman Ron Nehring to lead his state campaign efforts. Nehring was named the campaign’s national spokesman last month.
In many ways, Cruz’s California strategy is indicative of how he’s run his national campaign: grassroots organization and surgical behind-the-scenes dealmaking, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “You have to give credit to the Cruz people: They planned for it.”
Thirteen delegates will go to the statewide winner, and each of California’s 53 congressional districts award three delegates. Thus, the contest is set up as 53 micro-primaries, where Cruz could rack up delegates by enlisting local GOP leaders.