Trump Forces Beat Back California Delegate Rule Change Proposed By DeSantis Allies

DeSantis acolytes tries to sneak this change to harm Trump.

California recently updated their delegate allocation rules.  These are the rules that govern how delegates from California to the RNC convention are distributed among candidates for President.

All states have a number of delegates determined by a formula within the RNC rules.  Every State Chairman, National Committeeman, and National Committeewoman are automatically delegates to the RNC convention.  Each state will also receive three delegates for each congressional district and ten at-large delegates. States will also have bonus delegates that are determined by Republican control of Governor’s offices, US Senate seat, if the state’s congressional delegation is majority Republican, if the houses of the state legislature are controlled by Republicans, and how the state voted in the last Presidential election.

California does not have any bonus delegates.  But because of the size of the state and the number of congressional districts, California has more delegates than any other state. Traditionally, California used a system of delegate allocation where the winner of the statewide vote would receive all at-large delegates (including RNC members) and the winner of each individual congressional district would receive all three delegates from that congressional district.  This is the system that California used in 2016.

There is a clause within the rules of the RNC prohibits any state from using a simple winner-take-all allocation method prior to March 15. That could mean statewide, but the rule also applies to individual congressional districts. If a state’s delegate allocation plan doesn’t follow this clause in the RNC rules, the state will be penalized by 50% of their delegates. However, if a state adopts a proportional allocation method they can include a threshold for winner-take-all.

In 2016, the California primary was held in June and they were able to use a winner take all method.  But after 2016 the state of California changed their primary date to the first Tuesday in March.  In 2020, the California Republican Party adjusted their allocation rules.  Instead of winner-take-all by congressional district, they tied the delegate allocation to the statewide primary vote. All delegates were pooled together and allocated proportionally.  But if a candidate reached the threshold of 50%, they were awarded all delegates. There was also a minimum threshold of 20%.  If no candidate received 50% of the vote, only candidates who received a minimum of the 20% of the vote would be able to receive a delegate allocation.

But those rules sunset after the 2020 election.

California had to adopt a new set of delegate allocation rules.  They were also on a timetable to adopt the rules.  The rules had to be adopted before Oct. 1, 2023.  The California Republican Party’s convention ends on Oct. 1, 2023.  If anything went wrong with the rules they would be forced to use the old method and would receive a penalty of 50% of their delegates.  But the California Republican Party rules allow for their Executive Board to make this decision.

Initially, it was proposed that they adopt a set of rules that would allow for proportional allocation of the at-large delegates by a statewide vote and a winner-take-most allocation in each individual congressional district where the top vote getter would receive two delegates and the second place vote getter would receive one delegate. 

The Trump Campaign was aware of the rules process in California as well as the RNC rules that they would be forced to comply with. The initial proposal would eliminate any chance for President Trump to receive all 169 delegates from California, even though they are polling at or above 50% in the state.  It would also effectively make the race a two-person race in California and would remove any possibility of other candidates campaigning in California other than President Trump and Governor DeSantis. 

The Trump campaign began to communicate quietly with supporters on the executive committee of the California Republican Party to discuss the possibility of returning to the 2020 rules or a variation of them.  They were able to find the support to allocate delegates proportionally with a 50% threshold for winner take all.  One point of concern from California party members was that they wanted the state to be attractive for many candidates to campaign in the State, but this was alleviated by the elimination of the minimum threshold.  Every candidate can campaign and earn delegates in California, even candidates who are only polling at a few percent.

This set of rules does two things for President Trump. The Trump campaign’s internal polling and modeling suggests they are in an excellent position to reach 50%.  They now have the chance to walk away with all 169 California delegates. They not only see this as a strong possibility, but they are also the only candidate who can reach 50%.  But they have also eliminated the possibility of this becoming a two-man race.

DeSantis is the real loser with this set of rules. Not only does he have to contend with preventing President Trump from reaching 50%, but he also has to prevent any other candidates from eating into his share of the vote.  He is one among many, not the President’s chief rival.

In the end, California has become much more important to President Trump and it is a massive and expensive anchor for the DeSantis campaign. 

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