Ted Cruz lands in California on Monday for two rallies in a state where voters won’t head to the polls for nearly 60 days, but the West Coast swing is anything but a diversion. It’s preparation for the campaign’s endgame.

If Cruz is to stop Trump short of 1,237 delegates, the final, decisive stand will almost certainly come in California. And that realization has spurred a behind-the-scenes arms race, with Cruz, Trump, John Kasich and their allies making new hires, planning new field offices and forming new big-money groups in what is set to be the sprawling state’s most consequential Republican primary in a half-century.

“California is likely to be where this fight is decided,” said Ray McNally, a Republican strategist in the state, who is one of the strategists behind a new California-specific anti-Trump super PAC.

Cruz will have the state to himself on Monday, which is nothing new after placing his first operative on the ground here more than six months before his rivals. But Trump and Kasich are busily paying catch-up.