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I would not hold my breath on any major comeback for Cruz or Rubio. Is it statistically possible still? Yes, is it likely? Not really.
TX is the only state in which someone other than Trump has polled a lead where the polls aren’t ancient, and there the lead ranges from close to a blowout for Cruz... reality is its probably somewhere in between. So lets just play Cruz wins TX, and wins enough Congressional Districts to trigger a Winner Take All there, (he won’t get 50% of the vote), so winning more than 50% of the districts is his only way to get the WTA trigger. This would give him 155 delegates for Texas.... Trump on the otherhand has 99 delegates coming from FL a true winner take all with no trigger a week later... and will win the majority of proportionally distributed votes from the other states voting on 3/1.
Trump is currently at 82 Delegates, and Cruz has 17 and Rubio has 16.
Cruz winning TX 100% puts him at 172, not bad, slightly double Trumps current total, but there are about 375 other delegates that will be proportionally allocated and a few of those states have WTA triggers in them as well... but lets just play devils advocate and stick completely proportional for all of them.. If they breakdown is roubly 40 to 20 to 20 on average elsewhere, with about 10 each for Kasich and Carson, That’s 155 delegates for Trump and 77 delegates each for Cruz and Rubio.
So, with those assumptions in place, Cruz is within a few delegates of Trump, but, what then? DO you think Rubio is going to leave? I doubt it... I can’t see anyone leaving before the 15 other than perhaps Carson.... So What states after 3/1 suddenly find themselves drastically changing their outcomes due to Cruz winning his home state? I don’t see any.
Say Cruz does gain a few points now that he wins, where are they coming from? Trump? Cruz? both? Lets assume he goes up a few points and they all come from Trump, Trump still pretty much runs the table between 3/1 and 3/15, and FL he’s going to be the WTA of 99 delegates, along with a growing proportion.... So his lead grows again, probably to more than double of Cruz and Rubio if not triple by 3/15.
So when does Rubio or Cruz make it up? Trump is the perceived front runner, and success breeds success, so what triggering event changes the race? Rubio or Cruz drops out... okay, so now you are down to 2 players... assuming at that point that the remaining Non Trump player is guaranteed the wins going forward is a very very bad assumption to make.
Yes it is still statistically possible someone else could win the nomination, and yes in a 2 player race one player getting over 50% to trigger the WTA allocation is simpler and certainly allows someone to make up ground... Rubio and Cruz combined are really not consistently 40% of the divided field, and represent separate wings of the party, so its certainly no guarantee that if one pulls out the other is going to find themselves defacto in the drivers seat.
It ain’t over, but if Trump is sitting pretty on 3/15, which right now it looks pretty strongly that he will be, and honestly I don’t see it dropping to a 2 man race before then, at the earliest, the path for another person to beat him is very very very narrow.
Time will tell... I just don’t see how Cruz pivots an expected win in TX into “Now vote for me” when his pitch hasn’t worked before. Rubio has yet to win any state, as long as he’s got money am hard pressed to believe he’ll drop out... Frankly I think Kasich is just in the race at this point to give the GOPE a backup should Rubio’s glass jaw get punched again.
We will know soon enough how this will all play out... politics is always crazy, so who knows exactly what will happen, but right now, the idea Cruz can pivot to a win, after a home state win, and losses everywhere else except IA comes across as a very very long shot indeed.