Cruz not sweating potential Trump wins tonight

The Worst Web Site in the World can sometimes offer useful insight when they get people to talk on the record and for attribution, and that's what they did here with Ted Cruz research director and pollster Chris Wilson concerning the outlook on tonight's key races in Florida and Ohio. It's quite the conundrum if you're a Cruz supporter. On the one hand, you'd see a Kasich win in Ohio (which seems at least a 50-50 possibility) and a Rubio victory in Florida (which appears to be slipping away, although you never know) as useful in the sense that they at least deny Trump the massive haul of 165 delegates he would take from capturing both winner-take-all contests. But the problem with Kasich winning Ohio and Rubio winning Florida is that both men would presumably then stay in the race. Cruz wants them out as soon as possible to line up the two-man race with Trump that Cruz is convinced he can win. So is Cruz willing to take the short-term hit of two Trump wins tonight if it clears the field for him? Apparently he is, believing he has an excellent chance to recover next Tuesday in Arizona and Utah - and that from that point on a two-man race favors him heavily:

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“All we have to do in a two-person is, we need to win 55-45,” said Chris Wilson, Cruz’s research director and pollster. “We do that the rest of the way, we’re the nominee.” It’s part bullish bravado — and part studied analytics. “I don’t want to put any clippings on our opponents’ locker room but I’ll say this: In surveys that we’ve taken in a two-man race versus a four-man race, in the states after March 12, we see, of the 70 percent that’s available [among current non-Trump voters], we literally see 90 percent of that vote to come to us,” Roe said. But that consolidation has to happen fast. Cruz’s top strategists say they believe Cruz must win decisively in Arizona and Utah, the next states to vote on March 22. That was the thinking behind Cruz’s more inclusive tone at last Thursday’s debate, when he explicitly reached out to Rubio and Kasich’s supporters. “There are only two of us that have a path to winning the nomination, Donald and myself,” Cruz said at one point. “I want to invite you, if you've supported other candidates, come and join us.” Afterward, in the spin room, Roe called it “a permission slip to join our campaign.” “The first ones are critical,” Roe said of Arizona and Utah. “It is critical to win some of those states to reset the race.” Cruz quietly began buying ad time in Arizona over the weekend, reserving $200,000 over 10 days, making him the first to buy ads in any state that votes after March 15. Cruz hired a top Arizona strategist six months ago, zeroing in on its potential significance as an inflection point on the calendar as early as last September.

If you're a Republican whose only priority is to make sure Trump is not the nominee, your dream (it totally unrealistic) scenario is this: Rubio wins Florida tonight. Kasich wins Ohio tonight. Then both get out. Never happen, you say? Probably true. Why would you get out after winning? Normally you wouldn't. But if you've stayed in this long only to play the spoiler against Trump, then strategically it would be the logical thing to do. Your only role in the race at this point is to set a pick for Trump so he can't take your own home state's delegates. Get that job done, then get out of Cruz's way because from here on in he's the only one who can do Trump any real damage. Is it possible that both Kasich and Rubio actually are thinking that way, but for obvious reasons won't acknowledge it before the voting? It seems unlikely, and any such theory is directly contracted by what Rubio said earlier today. So if it takes Kasich and Rubio losses tonight to get Kasich and Rubio out of the race (assuming even that would do it), then Cruz is going to find himself with some real catching up to do once he finally gets the two-man race he's been wanting. But it might be doable. The vast majority of the remaining Republican primaries are closed, which means you have to already be a registered Republican to vote. That should work to Cruz's advantage because it would close off the process to many of those who have supposedly gotten engaged for the first time on account of Trump (not to mention Democrat mischief-makers, and yes there are plenty of those). Right now, Trump is 99 delegates ahead. If Trump wins Ohio and Florida, only to see Cruz come back and win Arizona and Utah, that would put Trump 166 delegates ahead going forward from March 22. New York has 95 delegates but it's proportional, so even if Trump wins there it won't cripple Cruz. And California is a huge opportunity for Cruz with 172 winner-take-all delegates at stake. So yes, it is possible that Kasich and Rubio losses tonight would be worth the short-term hit for Cruz if it means Kasich and Rubio get out as a result. But Cruz is cutting it awfully close. That two-man race he wants has to come quickly, and once it does, he needs to dominate it every bit as much as his people say they expect. This thing may not be decided for a long time.

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