How will California's new Republican primary system, which awards delegates based on the voting in each congressional district, affect the various candidates seeking the GOP presidential nomination?
Most of the candidates say they intend to focus their energies statewide, rather than try to cherry-pick selected congressional districts -- with the exception of backers of libertarian Ron Paul, who are making a concerted effort to try to capture the San Francisco district held by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Their rationale is that since there are only 33,000 Republican voters in that district, a low-budget, grassroots campaign could be effective there.
My analysis, based on the district-by-district outcome in the 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary, is that the new system will help help the candidate most favored by conservatives. At this point, that seems to be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who last week received the endorsement of the ultra-conservative California Republican Assembly.
In 2002, conservative Bill Simon defeated moderate Richard Riordan 49 percent to 31 percent in the statewide popular vote in the GOP primary. But Simon won 36 of the state's 53 congressional districts, or 68 percent. He did this by sweeping congressional districts in the most conservative parts of the state -- the rural north and the Riverside-Orange-San Bernardino-Ventura-San Diego ring around Los Angeles. Riordan carried 14 districts, all but one dominated by Los Angeles County voters (the other was in San Francisco).
Statewide polls show former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani with a 12 percentage-point statewide lead over Romney, who is in a virtual second-place tie with John McCain and Fred Thompson. But the 2002 gubernatorial results suggest that under the new system a conservative candidate could lose the statewide popular voter and still win a higher percentage of delegates than a moderate statewide winner.
At this point, consider that an advantage to Romney.