Posted on 03/14/2016 8:43:15 PM PDT by JediJones
...if Rubio and Kasich exit the race after March 15...Ted Cruz can beat out Donald Trump...
[Trump] has a very high floor of support because he has garnered more media attention than any candidate in the history of presidential politics. ...that same media attention has convinced almost every other Republican voter...to oppose him at all costs.
...had this battle been a two man race after Super Tuesday, Cruz would already be leading...
The March 15 Roadblock
Donald Trump could not ask for a more fortuitous situation in which the mixture of his challengers, their home states, and winner-take-all status all coalesce in his favor at the perfect time.
...by having Kasich and Rubio both lose their states and exit the race, Cruz will finally be able to go man-a-mano against Trump...
Now, what happens if Trump wins the 99 delegates in Florida, especially if he wins the 66 delegates in Ohio? Won’t this be the end of the race? Doesn’t Trump have it in the bag? This will be the narrative the fawning media tries to promulgate on the night of March 15. However...this scenario will actually lead to the downfall of Trump.
...even a more pessimistic spread...would likely result in Trump coming out of Super Tuesday 2.0 no more than 200 delegates ahead of Cruz.
...polls have consistently shown that Cruz would beat Trump head-to-head in almost every state...[Trump] has an impervious ceiling in the low 40s.
...[Cruz] would have a great path to winning a plurality and coming into a convention with the mandate...
...on June 8: Cruz 1239, Trump 987...roughly 250 for other candidates.
...all built upon the assumption that Kasich and Rubio leave the race.
...having Kasich (or even Rubio) stay in the race along with Cruz will also result in Trump missing the delegate majority...
(Excerpt) Read more at conservativereview.com ...
“...had this battle been a two man race after Super Tuesday, Cruz would already be leading...”
Pure slavering supposition, repeated ad infinitum by Cruz supporters, in a desperate bid to make it so.
It’s my guess the rest of the (ahem) article contains a similar level of wishful thinking and candy dreams.
I disagree for a simple reason: money. Kasich has about a million dollars on hand, minus whatever he has poured into Ohio this last month.
Most of the establishment PACs have been heavily invested in Rubio for the last several months and it will take them more than a week or two in order to cut new ads that meld with Kasich’s messaging. (Remember, PAC’s can’t have contact with any campaign.)
Rubio had about five million on hand, and that would have been enough to put up ads and campaign stops in Arizona, Utah, and Wisconsin. But Kasich can’t. He doesn’t have the luxury of overlapping media markets and both Trump (infinite money available) and Cruz (thirteen million on hand, not counting his PACs) can starve him of available air time no matter where he tries to focus.
By the time Kasich can get more money, and the establishment PACs can shift into gear for him, he will have been invisible on the trail for over a week.
The article also says that the delegates aren’t necessarily handpicked by the candidates. They might be assigned by the party in that state. The problem for Cruz and Trump to stop a contested convention is that most delegates are bound on the first ballot to vote for who won the particular contest that assigned them to a candidate. If the magic number of delegates wasn’t won, there isn’t much wiggle room to find a way to win on the first ballot. And the second ballot is a free-for-all.
However, some are not bound on the first ballot. Pennsylvania’s 54 delegates are directly elected and are NOT legally bound to vote for any candidate even on the first ballot. They are free to choose. It was up to each candidate to get their loyal delegates listed on the ballot and then to get them elected in April. So there is the possibility that if the won delegate count is very close to the magic number, the minority of unbound delegates could put one candidate over-the-top on the first ballot.
Given the establishment’s hatred of both Trump and Cruz and them pushing Kasich and Rubio to stay in, which is ONLY done at this point to stop Cruz, not to stop Trump, I doubt they would ever help Cruz or Trump win on that first ballot. They would much rather have the first ballot fail, and then expect to have a lot more delegates in their corner once they’re unbound for all subsequent ballots. Hugh Hewitt signaled that a Kasich/Cruz ticket is what the establishment has in mind now...Kasich as the liberal hand-picked candidate and Cruz as a bone thrown to conservatives a la Quayle, Kemp, Cheney and Palin (and Ryan when many people still thought he was conservative).
Cruz’s Path to Victory: Donald Trump drops out or drops dead before July.
But the Monday debate is coming to make him visible again. And like you said, by then the PACs could be in gear for him. The race is going to become very spread out after March, with smaller, equal portions of contests happening in April, May and June. It would be enough time for the establishment to coordinate around Kasich and try to prop him up.
If Kasich lost Ohio, given his pledge to drop out in that event, it would be a godsend to Cruz, not Trump.
It’s hard to imagine that Rubio stays in after losing Florida, but unlike Kasich, he’s insisted he will no matter what. Probably just a ploy to make himself look like a winner and a fighter, but Cruz does need him to drop out to make his path forward viable.
That’s why I think Cruz will eventually release his delegates and Trump will choose him as his running mate. If 1900+ of 2,472 delegates are bound to candidates on the same ticket, there is no way the GOP cannot cede to the will of the people.
And while there are plenty of establishment selected delegates that have to hold their nose and vote for Trump or Cruz on the first ballot, there are enough States, like Illinois and Pennsylvania, that allow the candidate to select their delegates that it shouldn’t be an issue.
If Trump has 1100 delegates and Cruz has 800, there will be at least 127 out of 800 who will vote for Trump if Cruz is his running mate.
The latest NBC/WSJ national poll projects Cruz to beat Trump 57-40 in a hypothetical two-way race while the ABC/Washington Post poll has Cruz beating Trump 54-41. Notice how they both have Trump around 40% in a two-man race, similar to what we saw from the Michigan exit poll, which also showed Cruz winning a hypothetical two-man race.
Note the tortured math to get Cruz to the 1237 number after losing all the delegates in FL and OH.
They claim he’d win all in Guam and the Virgin Islands. (He just has one committed delegate in Guam. Zero in the Virgin Islands).
They claim he’d take eight delegates out of DC. (Like Trump, he took none).
They gave him all the delegates in WY. (He’s already lost at least two of them).
They assumed he won all the delegates in MO. (It won’t happen. No one will reach 50% there).
They assumed he took 50% of the vote in NC. (Polling has him in the 30% range).
They have him up in 11 of IL’s 18 CDs and winning the state. (Polling says otherwise).
It will be somewhat difficult for Trump to get to 1,237 delegates if he loses in OH tomorrow. It’s nearly impossible for Cruz to get a path to the nomination without a brokered convention using that same math. He’s already down 90 delegates to Trump and will have to make up a gap of at least 99, if not more, after Trump wins FL and possibly OH tomorrow.
I’m unclear on how many delegates are assigned by the party or state and how many are selected by the campaigns. Pennsylvania, though, is a direct election, not quite a selection. I don’t know if people normally even worry much about which delegates to vote for, because the contest is usually over by the time we vote. So they could end up just picking random names, or the names of establishment players they’re familiar with. This is where lack of organization could hurt Trump. He needs people at the polling stations handing out fliers saying which delegates to vote for.
With Cruz and Trump facing three more months of fighting, it’s hard to see how they end up on the same ticket. I think Trump/Kasich is more likely, unless Cruz actually does get more delegates than Trump going in. Then there’s no way Trump makes the cut. Depending on how many establishment delegates there are, they’re going to need to be thrown a bone, and Trump/Cruz or vice versa won’t cut it.
I agree it’s tortured math to get Cruz over the magic number. The writer makes that pretty clear, and lower down explains how if these optimistic scenarios don’t play out, Cruz could still end up ahead of Trump by lesser margins.
I think California will be poison for Trump. The last poll showed he only has 25% there in a 4-way race, a very low number by Trump’s usual standards. It looks like Trump could come in third there behind Kasich and Cruz if all 3 of those are the only ones in the game then. Looks more like a Minnesota-style result in the making.
The Conservative Review again? Yawn.
The cRuse pipe dreams, full of that aromatic mathematical smoke, when laid back conjuring up how to cheat a contender out of ballots and delegates. :)
California is winner take all by Congressional District with just 13 additional statewide delegates because it’s a Democrat rathole.
Under that scenario, it will be very hard for any candidate to completely run the table, if things are still contested by that point.
NJ is winner take all. Anyone who thinks Cruz will beat Trump is NJ is delusional. And Trump will beat Cruz soundly in NY and AZ.
As a Cruz supporter, I would agree that his position on the Sanders mobs is not one of his best positions. BUT, see most Cruz supporters are able to see his mistakes, ADMIT THEM, and realize that he’s not perfect.
The Trump supporters on this website has been almost cult-like in their support of the Donald for months. HE CAN DO NO WRONG IN THEIR EYES. Even if Trump talks of murdering someone, showing how crazy he is, Cruz is worse because he knows Glenn Beck — and you know, Beck talked of stabbing Trump. IN THESE CASES, BECK AND TRUMP ARE NUTS, but remember, the Donald can do no wrong. Keep the cult going.
lololol
Conservative Review has distinguished itself as one of the smartest political sites on the net with a true fidelity to pure conservative values. It puts hacked-out, low-rent, bargain-basement propaganda like Fake-Breitbart to shame.
Many Trump supporters have shown they will say anything to get him elected. There is a fanatical, unreasoning devotion and cult worship of him that we last saw with Obama supporters.
I have to say, you're the first Cruz supporter I've seen say that he possibly might have been wrong about his Sanders mob position. A lot of people actually left supporting him because it was so transparently desperate. And those that remain as supporters bye and large pretend he didn't do anything wrong.
Ever.
Not a good sign.
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