A mixed crowd of old and young people, including some undecideds, attended a presidential rally for Sen. Ted Cruz at the San Diego’s Town and Country Hotel on Monday evening
A total of 2,000 tickets were made available to the public on April 8, and were sold out in roughly half-a-day’s time .
Cruz spoke for about 30 minutes and focused on what he called the three critical issues in this year’s campaign: jobs, freedom and security.
He touched on bringing back small businesses to America by “taking the boot of the federal government off of the backs of the necks of small businesses,” getting rid of Obamacare and passing a simple flat tax.
“If I’m elected president, we will repeal every word of Obamacare. We will pass common sense health-care reform that makes health care personal and portable and affordable and keeps government from getting in between us and our doctors. We will pass a simple flat tax, where every American can fill out their taxes on a post card. And when we do that, we should abolish the IRS.”
Cruz also spoke out about his plans for illegal immigration, saying he wanted to bring America back to its original principles and values.
“We’re going to stop amnesty and secure the borders and end sanctuarycities and end welfare benefits for those here illegally.”
He also added, after a supporter in the crowd yelled out, “What about the fence?”, that planned to add more fence and triple the Border Batrol. He gave his word that he will end illegal immigration if elected president.
Some people at the rally were undecided whom to vote for and showed up to hear what Cruz had to say.
“We’ve been super interested in the whole presidential race and the campaign,” said Brayan Gonzalez, a 22-year-old Republican. “Personally, we’re Republicans and we don’t really have a candidate that we can get behind right now or that we really support, so we’re just getting a feel for the different candidates and right now Ted Cruz is the one who’s out here, so we’re here.”
The crowd at the rally was mixed between older and younger voters. Patrick Johnson, a 25-year old business owner, wanted to see what Cruz had to offer him. He who was on the fence between voting for Cruz or Donald Trump.
“I think the reason why I showed up is I really care about the future of the country and my future. So when you look at politics, politics kind of runs the whole show. So if you know what’s going on politically and get in with the right people, you can kind of control your destiny. So that’s why I’m young and I’m here at this rally.”
After the rally, a number of supporters were outside holding signs of who they thought should be elected the next resident.
Former City College student Michael Farrell was outside of the rally holding a Donald Trump sign. He chose not to go into the rally because he didn’t want to support Cruz.
“I can’t support Cruz based on the fact that he didn’t right away show up to vote to audit the Fed (Federal Reserve). If you don’t show up to the vote to audit the Federal Reserve Bank right away, you’re not even electable to me.”
California is established as a “no-party reference” state, which means voters who are not affiliated with a party can choose whom they would like to vote for on election day.
As it turns out, California’s primary election, with 172 delegates at stake, could be the deciding factor for the Republican Party. As of now, Donald Trump has 743 delegates and Cruz is trailing behind, with 545. A total of 1,237 delegates are needed to secure the nomination.
