Posted on 03/08/2016 10:00:07 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
By all accounts, Ted Cruz had a great day on Saturday, scoring surprise wins over Trump in Kansas and Maine (by fairly comfortable margins), tying him in Louisiana, and narrowly losing Kentucky. Cruz narrowly closed the delegate gap with Trump and just as importantly increased the space between himself and the other non-Trump candidates.
Today, Ted Cruz needs to do three things in order to keep his momentum going, in no particular order.
1. Beat Marco Rubio (and John Kasich) in Michigan. Donald Trump is probably going to win Michigan. Cruz's strategy in Michigan is to beat two guys who have been saying for months that Michigan is the sort of state they would both do better in than Cruz: Marco Rubio and John Kasich. The knock on Cruz has always been that after Super Tuesday, the map shifts to more non-evangelical, non-conservative states. Rubio and Kasich have been saying all along that they would beat Cruz in states like Michigan. If Cruz beats them both, he scores a convincing win for his narrative that he is the best anti-Trump candidate across the board. Of course, in Kasich's case, it might not matter, since Kasich is a deluded fool, but to some of Kasich's voters, it might. And it definitely will to Rubio voters.
2. Win Idaho. No one knows what is going on in Idaho, but Cruz has been campaigning hard there with the expectation of a win. In fact, Cruz gave his victory speech on Saturday from a rally in Cour d'Alene. Idaho is a primary, but it is closed. Cruz needs at least one outright win today to keep the narrative "I am able to consistently beat Donald Trump" going, and Idaho is probably his best shot. Idaho's a small state, but there's important symbolic value in adding outright state wins to the tally.
3. Win (or effectively tie) Mississippi. As much as Cruz will not admit it, the loss of several deep South states stung his chances against Donald Trump in a serious way. The worst losses of his campaign were the shellackings he took in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. The collapse of Rubio allowed Cruz to turn that around in Louisiana and Kentucky to draw very close to Trump. It would be an enormous feather in Cruz's cap if he could claim an outright win in the Deep South. Probably, he wants this to happen worse than anything today, although it is the least likely thing to happen. At the very least, he needs to claim a delegate tie (or close to it) like he got in Louisiana.
Wild Card: Hawaii. Who even has the vaguest clue what is going to happen in Hawaii? I sort of assume Trump is going to win because it's a pretty liberal state but I assumed the same thing about Maine. Maybe Cruz wins? Maybe Kasich wins? Maybe Reagan's corpse wins? I think if Cruz is even close to Trump in Hawaii he gets to claim another win.
Number 3, not so much.
Wild card: irrelevant.
So, one out of four? Maybe two out of four.
He beat Kasich in Michigan?
Pretty sick of the author to say Reagan’s corpse may win Hawaii given recent events.
Typical Red State classlessness
A windfall for him was the complete train-wreck of Rubio tonight. Kasich barely has enough money to get through next Tuesday’s run, $1,400,000 on hand at the last report, while Rubio has just over $5,000,000.
But when you are scoring single digits with only four in the race, your run is done.
That means that Cruz, $13,600,000 on hand, and Trump will be able to pull away from the remnants of the last GOP establishment choice, Kasich, simply based on the money situation.
Yep, by just over 8,000 votes or 0.6%.
TED State conflating. They will hang on until the end.
Keep your expectations low.
Well, we are in the process od delivering Ted Cruz a 165.5% margin of victory here in Idaho.
And he kept it relatively close in MI and MS, coming in second in both of those.
It is a two man race for all intents and purposes.
Number three was never realistic.
....”It is a two man race for all intents and purposes”...
Yes indeed.
“He beat Kasich in Michigan?”
Yes. At least so far.
98% reporting Cruz 24.9% Kasich 24.3%
Yea, but Kasich is ok because he is going to win Ohio! He wants a brokered convention!
Oops...dang fumble fingers.
That’s a 16.5% margin here in Idaho.
Rubio looks a bit unhinged.
For his own political future he should drop out before he get shellacked in his home state.
But I do not think he has it in him. He is going to ride that pony down in flames.
Cruz didn’t spend much in Michigan and still beat kasich.
Two man race, for sure.
Cruz’ margin is Idaho is larger than Trump’s in MS or MI.
Yes he did.
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