" "Moderate voters, by their nature, do not like pompous arrogant windbags who delight in trash-talking everyone who they disagree with slinging tons of personal attacks. I have 3 mildly conservative daughters who are uniformly horrified by Trump ("a jerk like that is not welcome at MY table, ---oh, poor Melania!"). They are all voting for Cruz, though he is not their first choice. Daughter # 2 says, "Trump is not my last choice, he's my dead last choice!
I’m not trying to argue with you, I’m just clarifying what I was trying to say:
You described your daughters as “mildly Conservative.” Personally, I don’t consider that to be “Moderate.”
To me, a Moderate is someone who considers themselves to be Moderate, or Independent. Not someone who considers themselves to be Conservative, or who would be described as Conservative to any degree, whether it be mildly or majorly.
I’m talking about fence-sitters. People who register as Independents. People who don’t vote in Primaries at all because they don’t lean far enough Left OR Right. They don’t have a horse in the race. Those are people that I am calling Moderate/Independent.
From your description, your daughters would be in the Conservative camp. And certainly there is a portion of the Conservative camp that prefers Cruz.
And of course the entire Left hates Trump. So the way I see it, in gross generalizations: 33% Left = hate Trump and will never vote Trump. 33% Right = will vote for whomever is the Republican nominee. And 33% Moderate = COULD vote for Trump, but would never vote for Cruz. Again, these are gross generalizations, and just my opinion.