He has earned the majority of delegates so far and is in the
lead. Most of the voters in the GOP primary are Republicans;
some may be unenrolled or even Dem. depending on the state.
For those, they could be either a) liberals trying their
own Operation Chaos to derail the GOP, or b) moderates
who might be fiscal, military, etc. conservatives but are
more moderate on social issues. They prefer him.
Maybe the GOP as a whole—voters—happens to be more
moderate than expected. People call him a RINO, but most people voting for him are Republicans. Perhaps it would
be more accurate to call him a Conservative-in-name-only
and we can say the party is now moderate rather than
conservative.
As we move through the rest of the states we’ll see
if he can become the nominee, and we’ll see if he can
beat Obama (or if Rick, etc., can). Maybe so, maybe not,
but so far he’s in the lead.
It looks weak, though, to demand a candidate clearly in
the lead in delegates to step down. There are other
options ranging from third party (oh God no, it would
help Obama) to putting up someone else in ‘16, who would be more conservative and more electable.
The delegate math favors Romney now, but who knows. (And
for the record, the Left is licking their chops at the idea of a “brokered convention”—it would make the GOP
seem indecisive.)
I’ll add that if unenrolleds are the problem, then each and every state should demand that only registered Republicans
can vote GOP. (I doubt that would happen.)
In my home state of MA, the number of registered Republicans is at a mighty 11 per cent. Not too many people would be voting in the primary if that were to be. Unenrolleds and of course
Dems far outnumber us.