DJT won election against Hillary, and against everything - literally everything short of creating a public scandal during the campaign - that a sitting POTUS was able to do to prevent his election.The reason that Trump defeated "the other 16 or so Republican candidates” was that unlike them, Trump demonstrated that he would fight. And fight he did, in circumstances which would have forced any other Republican out of the race.
Especially given the dirty tricks which we know in retrospect Trump faced from Democrats with the knowledge of the POTUS, it is a historical fact that no other Republican would have won. It was never a choice between Trump and a squeaky clean candidate, it was a choice between Trump and Hillary. And there was a distinction but not a difference between Hillary and Obama. The right of the people to select a president other than a Democrat would have been extinguished; indeed the Democrats thought they already had that in the bag. And SCOTUS would have gone along with the possibility of any future Republican POTUS. The Constitution was in the balance.
. . . and Democrats such as news broadcasters seriously think they can push Trump out!!
I partially agree. Cruz was also a fighter. What turned most people from Cruz to Trump was the realization that we needed an unorthodox street-fighter to defeat Hillary. Thankfully we got Trump.
I think Cruz would have been a good candidate against Obama in 2012.
Some data also help:
I believe the Trump jump came after an interview with Anderson Cooper then a rousing speech in Las Vegas, then he said McCain was no war hero on July 17.