Yes Ted Cruz is behind in the polls in California. He has also been ahead in the recent past. The truth is that California voters haven’t yet had a chance to get to know Ted. As a California voter, I think they will like what they see when they do.

Cruz’s appearance at the California GOP convention sends the message that the California GOP Establishment, which includes a lot of the Reagan faithful, supports Cruz. Given that Kasich has been winning the moderate vote in California, that’s important. They gave him a prime Saturday speaking spot. But even more important, Pete Wilson, former Governor and former mayor of San Diego, not only introduced Cruz, but endorsed him. The Wilson endorsement may carry some weight with a lot of moderate Republicans who have been concerned about what they have been told were Cruz’s overly conservative positions. Cruz has also received the endorsement of more than 50 California Republican Office holders and of former party California Republican Party Chairmen, Tirso Del Junco and Ron Nehring.

Further, Cruz has refined his standard stump speech to concentrate on California issues, including the Central Valley water shortage, a federally caused crisis for farmers which long precedes the current recovery from drought conditions. Since California awards delegates by congressional district as well as overall polling, that issue may win him the ten or eleven congressional districts impacted as well as garner votes in farming areas less directly impacted by the Federally mandated water policies in California that are literally destroying farms.

On the other hand, in urban areas, there are more Hispanic Republicans than folks outside of California realize. And many of them care about the Central Valley issue because those are their relatives who have been laid off and lost their farms. A very large percentage of those are going to vote Cruz because of Trump’s loathsome demagoging against Hispanics. And, a certain percentage of them are of Cuban descent and have always been Republicans because, Castro.

The polling shows that if Cruz can make serious inroads into Kasich’s vote, he can win without taking away many of Donald’s votes. Don’t give up hope, we can win if we can make it to California.