Donald Trump’s 2024 hopes boosted by California law change

Under new rules over how California Republicans choose their presidential nominee, a candidate who wins 50 per cent of the primary vote will get all 169 delegates.

Donald Trump at a political rally in Pennsylvania. Picture: Getty Images.

Donald Trump has scored a significant victory over his rivals in California after the state Republican Party changed how it would choose its presidential nominee.

The former president is the runaway leader in the race to be the party’s nominee next year, with a poll lead of more than 35 percentage points.

Each state party picks its preferred candidates in a primary election and sends delegates to formally vote at the party convention, to be held in August next year in Milwaukee. The number of delegates is weighted by the size and population of each state. California, with 169, is the biggest prize.

In the past, delegates have been split among candidates in proportion to how each performs in the state primary, which next year will be in March. In a rule change approved on Saturday, a candidate who wins 50 per cent of the primary vote will get all the delegates.

“Today’s vote … was a massive victory for California Republicans who are eager to have a say in deciding who our party’s 2024 presidential nominee will be,” Jessica Millan Patterson, chairwoman of the state party, said after Saturday’s closed-doors meeting.

The move is almost certainly a boost for Trump, who has a commanding lead over his rivals for the nomination.

An average of nationwide polls puts Trump on 52.6 per cent, way ahead of Ron DeSantis in second place. The Florida governor’s campaign has taken on water and he is at 15.2 per cent, having been level with Trump at the start of the year.

The latest poll in the state, for the Public Policy Institute of California, had Trump on 50 per cent, 26 points ahead of DeSantis. If those numbers are reflected in the primary, Trump will sweep up all of California’s delegates.

Ken Cuccinelli, founder of Never Back Down, an arm’s-length committee campaigning for DeSantis, 44, said: “Smoke-filled back rooms do not reflect the will of or benefit voters in any state. Yet across the country games are afoot to enhance the potential outcome of primary elections for one former president who half of the Republican electorate no longer wants.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, 77, said: “We are pleased the California Republican Party re-adopted a winner-take-all provision, and we look forward to competing across California to win all of its delegates.”

The Michigan state party has also adopted a winner-take-all approach and those in Idaho, Nevada, Louisiana and Colorado are considering the move.

If the polls remain close to their present levels, the primaries will be a procession for Trump. Despite his growing legal problems, both criminal and civil, his popularity among grassroots Republicans remains robust.

Trump said yesterday that he expected to be indicted “any day now” in the investigation by the special counsel Jack Smith into his part in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots.

“I assume that an Indictment from Deranged Jack Smith and his highly partisan gang of Thugs, pertaining to my PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY Speech, will be coming out any day now,” he said on Truth Social. “This seems to be the way they do it. ELECTION INTERFERENCE! PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!”

He lost the latest round of a court battle yesterday in Georgia, where he is expected to be indicted over allegations that he tried to overturn the result of the 2020 election in the state. The judge rejected his attempt to have the lead prosecutor disqualified and to block indictments. The judge also denied Trump’s request to quash a grand jury report that included recommendations on who should be charged. The report remains sealed pending charges.

The Times