Trump is way ahead of Cruz.
It is time for Cruz to recognize that Trump got the momentum in this election.
He is not going to be president. He just won’t. He’s however likely to knock off Trump also, if he continues as present, then the entire GOP establishment is back in business.
I don’t really believe anyone of FR wants that.
Do you?
No, he is not.
So far, Trump has won 37% of the votes cast, netting him a total of 48% of the delegates awarded (739 for Trump, 465 for Cruz, and 326 for Rubio, Kasich, Carson, Jeb!, Rand, Huckabee and Fiorina).
In order to get the nomination, Trump has to win at least 53% of the 944 remaining delegates, which is much better than he has done so far in the campaign, when the vote was being split among multiple candidates and a 37% plurality was enough to get all of the delegates in the winner take all states.
If Trump wins more than 53% of the remaining delegates then he will win the nomination outright before the convention. The issue is what happens in the very likely event that Trump wins less than 53% of the remaining delegates.
If Cruz wins 53% of the remaining delegates, he would not win enough to win the nomination outright before the convention, but he would win enough to take the lead from Trump going into the convention. If Cruz is in the lead going into the convention will Trump be obligated to withdraw? Will it be stealing the nomination from Cruz if it is not automatically awarded to him? Of course not. That only applies to Trump.
In the far more likely scenario that neither Trump nor Cruz gets more than 53% of the remaining delegates and they split them (with some small number going to Kasich), then neither will win the nomination before the first vote at the convention.
The delegates will then all be free to vote for any eligible candidate. Who are the eligible candidates? Only the candidates that have won a majority of delegates in at least 8 states (GOP Convention Rule 40). Unless Kasich suddenly wins 7 of the remaining primaries, the only eligible candidates will be Trump and Cruz.
So unless either Trump's or Cruz's delegates suddenly bail on their candidate and switch sides, the nomination will be determined by whichever one can win over the delegates that were pledged to Rubio, Kasich, Carson, Jeb!, and the other candidates that could not win enough states to be eligible. This is the only reason that Kasich is still in the race, to try and win enough delegates to give him leverage to negotiate a deal to swing the nomination to either Trump or Cruz.
It probably doesn't matter either way, however, since Trump supporters are declaring that they will never support anyone else and 40% of the Republicans polled say that they will never support Trump. So get ready for President Hillary.