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“The GOP establishment’s secret plan is to back Romney against Trump in the hopes of winning enough delegates in the primaries after Super Tuesday to block Trump on the first ballot at the GOP national nominating convention in Cleveland,”

That assumes that future state primary voters, currently supporting Trump, would rush to Romney over Trump.

What states would a new Romney entry win that Cruz/Kasich/Rubio would NOT win? What states would Romney take away from Trump?

Romney wasn't soaring in 2012. His entry would likely be met with as little enthusiasm as the reruns of Huckabee and Santorum were in Iowa this year.

March 2016 GOP Primary Dates & Delegates

	Election Day	Cumulative	Cumulative
	Total	March Only	Total w/ previous 133
1-Mar	624	624	757
5-Mar	154	778	911
8-Mar	149	927	1060
12-Mar	28	955	1088
13-Mar	33	988	1121
15-Mar	358	1346	1479
22-Mar	98	1444	1577

Needed to win 1237

Estimates are that Trump will pick up around 2/3 of the delegates tomorrow (SuperTuesday). Add those to his current 82 would show him about 416 + 82 = 498.

Even is only one candidate won the remaining 1/3, he would only pick up 208. Of course that will not happen and the remaining 1/3 will be split among Cruz/Rubio/Kasich/Carson.

That puts Trump nearly 300 delegates ahead of the combined delegates of the others.

If Trump wins 2/3 of all of the March delegates, that would give him around 962. Add those he already has and that puts him at 962 + 82 current = 1044. That means he has to pick up around 193 delegates in April-May-June to reach the magic number.

Another problem with a late Romney entry is the Rule #40 that candidates must win 50% of the delegates in at least 8 states to be allowed to have their names put in nomination at the Convention.

What states would Romney (or any of the other candidates) win by 50% over Trump? Trump will likely have at least 8 such states after tomorrow.

The numbers do not seem to be there for Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Carson, nor Romney.

Trump will not win 2/3 of the delegates tomorrow. These are not winner-take-all states, but mostly proportional. Some (like Texas) are partially based on the entire state’s vote and partially on a per Congressional District basis. Trump will do well to get 1/2 of the votes...

...but even given that, your thesis holds: Trump will be the victor. There is simply no one who can stop him at this point - “they” waited too long to do anything about him, content to wait for Trump to implode. They didn’t calculate a very ticked off electorate that was sick and tired of them and their usual shennanigans.

I, personally, don’t know how Romney even will be allowed to register in most states - filing deadlines have passed in most cases. He has no organization to speak of right now, and by the time that March 15 rolls around, I believe that Carson and Cruz - at a minimum - will be out of the race. Rubio is likely to leave if he cannot win his own state (particularly without Bush there to split FL voters). So, who is left? No one. The only “hope” of the anti-Trumpers is an independent run by someone. Bloomberg would, IMHO, take more votes from Hillary than from Trump, especially in the NY area. At best we might - from the perspective of the GOPe - be looking at no one earning 270 Electoral Votes...and that’s a whole new ballgame.