[SteveAustin]

Larry, great point on Cruz and Carson. I agree with you that those folks will consolidate with Trump.

But I still see a fascinating power summit that will need to take place among all of us as we’ll be divided 50-50 come next March.

Either the non-Trump GOP nominee will need to make peace with the Trump folks or Trump will have to make peace and win over the NRO crowd.

[LS]

I think you'll get half of the GOPe people consolidate and half (i.e. 25% as you put it) will hold out. How will they vote? Who knows. Reagan won with 7% of the vote going to John Anderson. Studies show that those voters would have split evenly between Reagan and Carter, so it mirrored 1992, where Perot took evenly between Clinton and Bush.

Trump, however, is the ONLY one who will gain more from the indies and general public and dems than he will lose with the disaffected Republicans. I think he wins plenty to get the presidency.