Trump, DeSantis will rally California Republicans after party changed primary rules

Republican presidential candidates will descend upon California in late September, with the state GOP announcing Wednesday that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will address their convention, one day after former President Trump’s campaign confirmed he would speak at the gathering.

Trump’s announcement came shortly after his advisors successfully convinced California Republicans to change the rules of the state’s GOP primary in a manner expected to help him in the state’s March 5 primary.

Trump will speak at a luncheon on Friday, Sept. 29, at the California Republican Party’s fall convention in Anaheim.

“President Trump is looking forward to seeing California Republicans at their state convention and is confident of overwhelming success in the upcoming March primary,” said Chris LaCivita, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign.

California Republican Party chair Jessica Millan Patterson said she was “thrilled” to have the former president speak at the convention.

“As California Republicans prepare to play a major role in deciding who our Party’s 2024 presidential nominee will be, I look forward to President Trump speaking with our delegates about his plans to move our country forward,” she said in a statement.

DeSantis will speak at a dinner the same day.

“As Californians struggle under the weight of Democrats’ failed one-party rule, Governor DeSantis has shown how a state can thrive under responsible, commonsense, conservative leadership,” Millan Patterson said in a statement.

Other GOP presidential candidates are expected to speak at the convention.

The state’s primary, which is scheduled to take place on March 5 with more than a dozen other states on “Super Tuesday,” is expected to draw significant attention because California’s 169 GOP delegates are the most of any state in the nation.

As protesters howled outside, the state party’s executive committee on Saturday altered how these delegates will be awarded. The state party had to overhaul its bylaws to comply with national GOP rules. But party leaders also chose a delegate-allocation plan backed by Trump’s campaign that angered DeSantis backers who believe the California GOP deliberately undermined his presidential aspirations.

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Under the new rules, if a Republican presidential candidate receives more than 50% of the statewide vote, he or she will receive all of the state’s 169 delegates. If no candidate reaches the benchmark, delegates will be awarded proportionally based on the statewide vote.

For much of the past two decades, delegates have been awarded by congressional district, which would allow candidates who don’t have the deep pockets to advertise in California’s expensive media markets to surgically target swaths of the state to collect delegates.

But now that the California GOP’s executive committee has changed the rules, party insiders expect the state’s primary — which many observers anticipated would be exciting and competitive — to closely mirror national polling.

California has not had a competitive Republican presidential nominating contest for decades. However, Trump’s appearance at the state party’s 2016 gathering in the Bay Area drew hordes of liberal protesters. The then-candidate had to clamber over a concrete barrier off the freeway and enter the convention site through a back door because protesters overwhelmed police in riot gear at the Burlingame hotel where the convention was taking place.

This time, Trump will address the California GOP convention while under criminal indictment. On Tuesday, he was charged with trying to stop the transfer of power after his loss in the 2020 election and his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

He had previously been charged in connection with an alleged hush money payment to an adult-film star in the final days of the 2016 campaign, and with mishandling and illegally possessing classified documents at his Florida home after his presidency ended.

Authorities in Georgia are also investigating if Trump committed crimes in attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss in the crucial state to Democrat Joe Biden.

DeSantis’ campaign has sputtered since its launch in May. Republicans seeking an alternative to Trump initially had high hopes for a DeSantis candidacy, in part because of his handling of the pandemic in Florida.

But he has fallen significantly behind Trump in the polls, is having financial difficulties that led the campaign to recently shed a significant amount of staff, and has made a series of missteps, such as recently supporting a Florida education curriculum that said slaves learned skills that some were able to use to their benefit.