Cruz worked his way through the maze of state party rules. He didn’t create them. Trump has depended on the understandable ignorance of these rules on the part of the average voter. Trump did pick up on the way that the rules were front loaded to favor the early frontrunner and successfully pushed to got to the head of the pack. He was helped by the sheer number of candidates. If Bush had not stayed in after New Hampshire and had not spent so much effort against Rubio, Rubio would have done much better in SC despite his flop in NH. The Bushies were pissed that Rubio did not support Bush. The irony is, it seems to me, that Jeb himself did not have his heart in the race.