Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina & John Kasich to headline CA GOP convention

Presidential candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich are expected to speak at this week’s California Republican Party Convention. The candidates are keeping a close eye on the Golden State’s June 7 primary, where Trump hopes to lock up the GOP nomination, and Cruz and Kasich both hope to block the front runner's path.

When they speak at the GOP convention south of San Francisco, PolitiFact California will be checking the accuracy of their claims. We’ll also be live tweeting the scene on-site.

Follow us on Twitter @CAPolitiFact and follow PolitiFact California Reporter Chris Nichols @ChrisTheJourno at the convention. Also, Capital Public Radio’s Capitol Bureau Chief Ben Adler will be filing stories from the convention at capradio.org and tweeting @AdlerBen.

Here’s a look at the schedule for key speakers at the GOP convention:

• Donald Trump at 12 p.m. on Friday

• Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 7:30 p.m. on Friday

• Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 12 p.m. on Saturday

• Carly Fiorina at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday

PolitiFact, the national fact-checking website, has examined more than 130 statements by Trump and rated about three-quarters of them Mostly False, False or Pants On Fire. It’s the worst scorecard of any presidential candidate checked by PolitiFact since the website started in 2007.

Cruz has earned ratings on the false side of the Truth-O-Meter about two-thirds of the time. Kasich, by contrast, has scored True, Mostly True or Half True ratings nearly 70 percent of the time. The Texas senator chose Carly Fiorina, a former presidential candidate and one-time head of Hewlett-Packard, as his running mate on Wednesday.

PolitiFact California produced a Trump ‘Report Card’ article here that examines the front runner’s troubled relationship with the truth. We published a similar article on Cruz’s record here. Kasich’s PolitiFact scorecard is available here.

Despite his struggles with the truth, Trump solidified his frontrunner status with primary victories on Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Delaware. The other two remaining GOP candidates, Cruz and Kasich, finished far behind Trump in all of those contests. The New York billionaire’s strong wins followed a deal reached between Cruz and Kasich to work together to strategically block Trump in the remaining primaries.

Trump has relatively strong GOP support in California, according to results from a poll in early April.

Trump was the choice of 39 percent of the state’s likely GOP voters, while 32 percent supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and 18 percent backed Ohio Gov. John Kasich, according to a Field Poll released April 7.

The survey also found that 53 percent of likely GOP voters viewed Trump favorably while 43 percent hold an unfavorable opinion.

Voter ratings of Cruz are slightly more positive – 54 percent favorable and 39 percent unfavorable, the poll found.

Contact PolitiFact California on Twitter @CAPolitiFact or email us at [email protected] with interesting or provocative claims made by presidential candidates while they’re stumping in California. We’ll review them for a possible fact check.