I disagree with your premise: that Cruz cannot get a majority of delegates on a 2nd or subsequent ballot. Cruz has been working these delegates for some time now. Plus, these delegates are not some monolithic entity, taking marching orders from some dark Lord of the Establishment. My county commissioner is running for delegate here in PA. He’s been in office for a number of years. He’s always held the line on taxes, and been a solid conservative. I completely believe he would vote for Cruz. I think the delegates will be, on the whole, slightly more conservative than your run-of-the-mill GOP primary voter. Cruz definitely has a good chance to get 1,237 votes at the convention.
The GOPe establishment has a helluva lot more experience than Cruz in working delegates AND manipulating the rules that are designed to ensure an ESTABLISHMENT win.
If this thing gets decided by the convention there is no way Cruz will be the nominee.
Cruz supporters need to face the truth, even if by some miracle he ended up being the nominee he still needs votes in November. That is something he has not shown that he can do.
Any miracle that I can think of that would make Cruz the nominee would be seen as underhanded by at least the difference in the number of voters between Trump and Cruz.
Cruz supporters need to be realistic, at this point there is no way Cruz can become the nominee on the first ballot. Anything that happens after that point to make Cruz the nominee will cause Cruz to lose the election.
Cruz voters think he has figured out how to win by corralling delegates without winning primaries by vote, but without the voters to put him there he will not get the votes when he needs them in the election.
All Cruz can do at this point is try to block Trump, if he succeeds in doing that we all lose in the end.
At this point Cruz and his supporters need to ask themselves what their goal is. Is their goal to win the Presidential election, or fight to the bitter end for a miracle that would weaken the resulting nominee?