New Rule TAMPERS with Primary – Or Does It?

(DailyVantage.com) – Ahead of the 2024 Republican presidential primary, the California Republican Party’s executive committee approved a change in primary rules that could benefit former President Donald Trump. During the 2020 primary, California’s 172 delegates were allocated based on a threshold requiring candidates to secure at least 20% of the popular vote. With the rule change, California’s 2024 primary will give 169 delegates to the candidate with over 50% of the popular vote or proportionally if no candidate gets a majority.

This rule change benefits the frontrunner in the primary, which is Trump. According to FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate polling, Trump leads the race with about 52.4% to runner-up Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 15.5%. In the 2016 Californian Republican primary, presumptive nominee Trump won 74.76% of the vote and 172 delegates. And in the 2020 Californian Republican primary, Trump was the incumbent President and presumptive nominee and won 92.21% of the vote and 172 delegates.

Recent polling from the Public Policy Institute of California shows Trump with about 50% in California, compared to DeSantis at 24%, former Vice President Mike Pence at 6%, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) at 5%. If Trump garners a majority vote, this would deny the DeSantis campaign any delegates from California, even if he wins over 20% of the vote.

The Republican National Convention will officially nominate the presidential candidate in Milwaukee on the week of July 15th, 2024. There will be an estimated 2,467 delegates, with a majority of 1,234 delegates required to win the nomination. The California delegates are worth about 14% of the total to win the nomination, which could sufficiently boost the Trump campaign to victory if he is not already the presumptive nominee.

While Trump remains ahead in the polls now, an entire year in politics can have a lot of shifts. With speculation rampant about who could win in 2024, it will remain ever important to be vigilant about what actions are happening that set the political stage.