Cruz will drop out after he loses Indiana. The convention talk is all psywar at this point to motivate his base. To have a contested convention you need two contestants and we dont’ have that. Cruz really hasn’t won much of anything outside of his home state and a bunch caucus states.
And, interestingly, for the most part, the highest percentage Mormon states in the nation....once the Beck/Romney team signed on with him.
That's a very good point. The 1976 convention was the last time we had anything close to contested convention on the GOP side and if I recall, Ford and Reagan were separated by just 40 delegates going in. The gap between Trump and Cruz will at best be around 450 delegates. Not even close.
Even with a slim 40 delegate lead (or whatever it actually was), Ford ended up winning over enough unpledged delegates to gain the nomination on the first ballot.
But Reagan had a legitimate case to contest the election. While he was just short, he clearly gave Ford a run for his money. He won 24 primary/caucus states (to Ford's 26) and less than a million popular votes separated them nationwide.
Not counting the contests tomorrow night, Trump currently has a 22-11 advantage in states won and a 2.4 million lead in national popular vote (not counting what will come in tomorrow night). It's pretty much a certainty that Trump will lead Cruz in states won by 27-11 margin after tomorrow nights results come in.
It's not close.