Posted on 03/15/2016 9:25:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Clinton bested Sanders in all the March 15 primaries except for Missouri, and Cruz is now Trump's only competition for the Republican nomination.
With the exception of Gov. John Kasich taking his home state of Ohio, Donald Trump won or is projected to win all the March 15 Republican primaries. Trump came in second in Ohio. However, the race is very close in Missouri, with Cruz only a quarter point behind Trump with 62 percent of the precincts reporting.
Although Sen. Marco Rubio came in second in his home state of Florida, he saw the writing on the wall and suspended his run for the Republican nomination when he could not edge past Donald Trump.
Hillary Clinton won or is projected to win in all the primaries, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Ohio and Illinois. As this article goes live, Sanders is ahead by two points in Missouri, with 68 percent of the precincts reporting.
Some pundits are likely to point out that if Rubio pulled out before today's primaries and if Kasich was no longer in the race, Cruz would have won every one of the Republican primaries. Had only Rubio pulled out, and if all of Rubio's voters voted instead for Cruz, the Texas senator would have still won Illinois and North Carolina, and come within two points of Trump in Illinois and within one point of Trump in Florida.
The delegate numbers get very close between Cruz and Trump if Rubio and Kasich were to send their delegates to Cruz.
Kasich is not getting out
Despite the OH loss to Kasich, and the two close races with Cruz in Missouri and NC, this was a huge night for Trump.
I show him winning 207 delegates on the night. Cruz will pick up about 80, and Kasich about 74.
At this stage, Trump has over a 200 delegate lead. With all the winner take all states coming up, I expect he is going to get to the magic number before the convention...but it may take him until June 7th now.
IMHO, Cruz has no path to an out right win now. The best he could do would be to win enough to deny the total math to Trump, and at this stage I feel that is a very outside chance in any case.
The absolute best Cruz should do now for the GOP and for the country would be to throw in with Trump as his VP.
At this stage, that would be my suggestion.
Sometime in April, make the deal for a Trump/Cruz ticket.
That would result in an absolute slam dunk against the GOPe, a slam dunk in numbers of delegates going into the convention, allow Trump to be in charge of the party rules, and unite the party for the general election against Hillary.
close second doesn’t mean much. It means he’ll be a trivia question someday, and no one will get him right
Kasich will end up digging into Cruz’ numbers.
And if frogs had wings...
Cruz gets a silver medal tonight.
What other state will he win or place second in?
Heard the Mitch wants Ted to apologize before he will throw his weight behind him. Sure will be sad if Ted does.
if if’s and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a Merry Christmas
The alternative is the vice presidency, despite what crazy Glen Beck says.
Or Cruz and Trump can team up and crush McConnell.
It doesn’t matter he will stay in and may well get Rubios supporters
Since Ted wants unity considering his delegate count he ought to suspend and support trump
Cruz may do to Trump what Reagan did to Ford in 1976. Depends on how well he does from this point on out.
Kasich seems to believe he can win Pennsylvania.
That would weaken Cruzs position. If he can build on tonight, he will take the send highest total into the Convention. Hes young. He can play the waiting game. Trump needed Ohio tonight to become inevitable.
In order to do the delegate math, we also have to get a good idea of how much money Cruz has left. Trump funds his own campaign, but Cruz needs funding. He did not come if first tonight anywhere, and that should hurt his fundraising ability. On the other hand, if this doesn’t hurt his fundraising, then he is in deep with the GOPe as a placeholder for Romney.
The fallacy in the argument is that 100% of Rubio votes go to Cruz.
Maybe they do but I don’t see it.
Not actually but keep thinking that way
So what Cruz really wants is a brokered convention
could of would of should of. Cruz should invent a time machine so he can get those victories he’s so sure would be his.
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