I wrote last night as the results were coming in that Trump now seems all but unstoppable barring a brokered convention, which off course runs the risk of alienating all his supporters because they would feel the nomination was stolen from their guy, and that would probably give the election to Hillary.
And no . . . we don't want that.
But let's look at some possible scenarios going forward. The big winner-take-all primaries on March 15 in Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio theoretically give a Trump rival the opportunity to pick up as many as 286 delegates. Of course, there are quite a few primaries and caucuses before then that will assign delegates on a proportional basis, the biggest of which being Michigan on March 8 with 59 delegates at stake.
Now if everyone below second place in the delegate count were to decide to get out and back the one remaining Trump rival, that would mean we'd have a Trump vs. Cruz race the rest of the way. It is realistic that Cruz could sweep all those states? Or at least do well enough to chip away at Trump's present lead of 124 delegates? There is, after all, still a long way to go to get to 1,237.
I'd say it depends on the dynamics of the race over the course of the next two weeks. It seems that nothing ever hurts Trump, but we've seen races turn quickly and if you combine a negative turn for Trump with most Rubio, Kasich and Carson voters going for Cruz, then sure, it's possible.
But that assumes a lot. Fairly or not, Cruz is widely disliked among the GOP establishment and it's hard to imagine the party coalescing around him with much enthusiasm. Maybe they would if they felt it was the only way to stop Trump, but everyone knows the establishment is really rooting for Rubio at this point.
Which brings us to the other problem with the Trump vs. Cruz scenario: Rubio seems very unlikely to drop out before having a shot at his home state of Florida with its 99 winner-take-all delegates at stake. Obviously if your only goal as a Republican is to keep Trump from being the nominee, you'd want to see everyone but one Trump rival get out today. And logically the guy who's 124 delegates behind (Cruz) seems to make more sense as the last man standing than the one who's 198 delegates behind (Rubio) and until Minnesota last night had not won a single state.
But the establishment prefers Rubio, and while the polls are not encouraging at the moment, I'm sure Rubio really believes he's got a chance to grab those 99 Florida delegates.
So where does that leave us? I really do think that if you could make this a two-man race today, Trump could still be beaten. It would take more than everyone else getting out, of course. Whoever is left would have to run better than he's run to date. If it's Cruz, the party establishment would have to get over its disdain for him. If it's Rubio, he needs to maintain his recent effectiveness and not be so robotic as he can tend to be at times.
But look, Cruz is obviously not getting out when he's solidly in second place. And as long as Rubio still thinks he's got a shot at Florida, he's not getting out for at least another two weeks. That means we're looking at the prospect of more vote-splitting and potentially another big night for Trump when we arrive at the March 15 SEC primary.
One thing that's clear is that Kasich and Carson both need to get out now. As for the others, I understand going hard after a goal and refusing to believe you're going to lose. And I like Marco Rubio a lot, but if I were him, I'd take a really hard look at the math right now and think about what's best for the country.
I wrote last night as the results were coming in that Trump now seems all but unstoppable barring a brokered convention, which off course runs the risk of alienating all his supporters because they would feel the nomination was stolen from their guy, and that would probably give the election to Hillary.
And no . . . we don't want that.
