By this time in 1980 Reagan was bringing in majorities in many states and winning by wide margins in nearly all of them. My preference is for somebody who’ll handle illegal immigration, thereby limiting my choices to Trump or Cruz, but this does not bode well.
Yes, because his own party wasn’t pouring $67M into attack ads against him, and he only had one opponent who ended up being his VP pick.
The bottom line is the party bosses are saying “it’s my party and i’ll cry if i want to”, they’re crying loudly like a bunch of spoiled brats, and they’re taking their ball and going home. Thereby handing the election to the Dems.
Sorry for mixing metaphors...