The polls this season have been as much a seesaw as the Presidential campaign itself.  Of course – because the polls reflect the changing dynamics of voter attitudes; and the polls are showing Donald Trump is trending back into the lead of the race right now.  On Friday July 8, the highly respected Rasmussen Reports released their new poll showing Trump at 40% nationwide, followed by Clinton at 38% and the third-party candidate, Johnson at 9%.   While the poll has a margin of error of 3%, it suggests Trump is trending back towards the first place position in the race and that Clinton’s prior weeks’ leads have been erased, perhaps because of negative reaction to the recent disclosures of mishandling of sensitive national security information regarding her email scandal.

Rasmussen also reported a decline in President Obama’s job approval, with 50% of the public now disapproving his actions as President and 49% approving.  Polling occurred July 5-7 and before the tragic police shootings in Dallas so public opinion of Obama on that is not reflected in the latest Rasmussen Report, but the disapproval rate on Obama is consistent with an Economist poll taken July 2-4 showing Obama had a 51% job disapproval rate and a 45% approval rate.

California’s delegates and alternates to the next Republican National Convention, all of whom will be Trump delegates as a result of his big statewide victory in the presidential primary, will meet on Saturday, June 25 near Los Angeles International Airport to organize themselves before the Cleveland convention.  The convention will occur at the downtown Quicken Arena from July 18-22.  California will send 172 delegates and the same number of alternates to the Republican Convention, and will be the largest single delegation to the event.  Delegates all serve as volunteers and are responsible for their own hotel and travel expenses.  The complete list of Trump delegates from the California Secretary of State’s website can be seen here near the end of the document: http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov//statewide-elections/2016-primary/republican-delegates.pdf

Donald J. Trump, who has just clinched the nomination of the Republican Party for President, is actually barnstorming California!  In a state where Mitt Romney lost to Obama in 2012 by 24 points, and where John McCain lost in 2008 to Obama by 23 points, Trump is within 10 points of Clinton in California in a recent PPIC poll and Trump says he will contest Clinton here!  And Clinton, who may lose her own primary to Sanders, has not even been forced by Sanders to defend her email scandal!  The Trump campaign will likely add new locations for more rallies in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Sacramento next week.  You can watch for final schedules and register for tickets to the events here: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/schedule/

Donald J. Trump, who has just clinched the nomination of the Republican Party for President, is actually barnstorming California!  In a state where Mitt Romney lost to Obama in 2012 by 24 points, and where John McCain lost in 2008 to Obama by 23 points, Trump is within 10 points of Clinton in California in a recent PPIC poll and Trump says he will contest Clinton here!  And Clinton, who may lose her own primary to Sanders, has not even been forced by Sanders to defend her email scandal!  The Trump campaign will likely add new locations for more rallies in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Sacramento next week.  You can watch for final schedules and register for tickets to the events here: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/schedule/

The California GOP will be welcoming the three presidential candidates at its convention at the Grand Hyatt in Burlingame on Friday/Sunday April 29-May 1.  Donald J. Trump, the current leader in California GOP polls, will be the keynote speaker at a luncheon starting the event off on Friday.  Ohio Governor John Kasich will speak at the Friday night dinner, and Senator Ted Cruz will speak at a luncheon the next day.  GOP and Faith & Family Leader Ralph Reed will lead a Prayer Breakfast on the Sunday morning.  All VIP receptions are already sold out!  For more information visit: https://www.cagop.org/convention/

“It’s just pouring up here!” explained an official of the Lake Shasta Marina to the San Jose Mercury.  Shasta Lake, the biggest reservoir in California, is at its 100% historical fill, up from 29% capacity on December 8.  The current “El Niño” inspired rains soaking the Golden State are clearly in the process of starting to reverse the state’s four-year drought and in the case of Lake Shasta, give some relief – if regulators will allow it – to Central Valley farmers and residents under tight water conservation rules around the state.

Reports are that other of the state’s water resources, including the Oroville reservoir in Butte County and also Pardee in the Sierra Nevada’s, are fast filling up.  Loch Lomond Reservoir in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains actually spilled over last Sunday and is at highest levels in three years.

Rain is just soaking both northern and southern California, with almost 6 inches reported overnight at Mount Diablo in the Bay Area, and the southern California commute greatly slowed as drivers slow down to adjust to wet roads.

Yet regulators keep warning that while reservoirs are at or above capacity, groundwater levels still remain low and in need of even more water to recharge.  Hopefully the rain will continue till the Governor yells “uncle” and pulls any water restrictions now made redundant on our farmers and residents.

Donald J. Trump has defied and exceeded expectations in this exciting presidential campaign, that is for sure.  If history is taken into account, with three big first place finishes in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, all improving over a decent second place finish in Iowa (and calling to mind that George H.W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan, the eventual nominee, in Iowa by about the same margin Cruz beat Trump) it is almost certain now that Trump will win the Republican nomination.

Do you disagree?  If so, then look at polls in Ohio, for its primary coming up in March, where Trump is leading his opponent, the Governor of the state, John Kasich.  Look to Florida, a big important swing state, where Trump is beating Marco Rubio, the state’s U.S. Senator, in the polls.  Then consider Texas, where Ted Cruz, that state’s U.S. Senator, holds a slim and quickly disintegrating lead over Trump.

Trump appears to be making his way through primary victory after victory more or less with the same success that Sherman had marching through the deep south to win the Civil War.

Surely, a lot a voters still need to be heard from between now and July, when Republicans have their national convention in Cleveland.  But it is a certainty that Donald J. Trump will be playing a major role on stage at that event.

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As a result of ObamaCare in California, taxpayer-subsidized free government health care benefits are now being provided to the 12.7 Californians who signed up.  That’s 1 in 3 Californians, according to the Los Angeles Times.  Provided through “Medi-Cal,” a state welfare program which is intended for the poor and indigent, and funded by state and Federal tax dollars, this “explosion” of free medical benefits has reached a $91 billion annual cost, with California taxpayers contributing $18 billion, according to the state Department of Health Care Services.  In a state already troubled by underfunded public employee pension funds for state workers and teachers, the state’s financial obligation to provide free health care to California’s growing poor population could have drastic results for taxpayers going forward.

There is little question that California’s poor population is growing.  For two years in a row, California ranks as the poorest state in the nation according to the Census Bureau’s tabulation, when cost-of-living is taken into account.  These Federal statistics show that about 24% of the state lives at or below the poverty level.  But now the new statistics from the state Department of Health Services indicate many more Californians, about 33% of state residents, are taking advantage of the Medi-Cal benefits program supposedly intended to provide health insurance to the state’s poorest residents.

The hugely expanded cost of the program to taxpayers, given the massive influx of new patients as a result of the mandates of ObamaCare, appears already to be taking some toll.  The Times reports that “Medi-Cal is seen by many as underfunded, with patients struggling to find doctors and sometimes receiving low quality of care. A group of activists and others recently filed a federal civil rights complaint alleging that Latinos are being denied access to healthcare because the program does not pay doctors enough.”

ObamaCare or “The Affordable Care Act” allowed states to open up Medicaid or their own welfare programs to anyone making less than 138% of the federal poverty level — for a single person, a couple or a four-person family, that means an annual income of less than $16,243, $21,983 and $33,465, respectively.