I think that “Carson is dropping out” move will only work once.
It was really dumb for Cruz to hand over ammunition to Trump. He’s already using it;
Donald Trump Blasts “Dishonest” Ted Cruz at New Hampshire Rally (2-2-16)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GSzw2XdpJo
Carson isn’t too happy either;
http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/02/02/ben-carson-cruzs-apology-needs-accountability.html
The shamming letters were the ones where Cruz graded voters on their voting history and sent the results to all their neighbors.
It worked. People who had not voted in years got out to vote this time to improve their “grade”.
Cruz got the highest turnout in the history of the Iowa caucus. If he can replicate this everywhere he will be unstoppable.
That dirty trick caused about 20% of the Carson voters to move over to Cruz rather than waste their vote on someone who was ending his campaign, according to Cruz. That was the difference between Cruz’s total and Trump’s total. Otherwise, Trump wins, and the entry polls were correct. I must say begrudgingly, it was a brilliant political dirty trick; hard to say which was best-—the mailer, Beck’s photoshopped phony Tweet, forgetting to note to the FEC that his wife’s employer, Goldman Sachs, and chief beneficiary of her previous employer’s (the Fed Govt) massive transfer of money to the NY Banks in 2008 gave Cruz a million dollars and doggone it the Ivy League brainiac just forgot. Kinda like he forgot he was a Canadian citizen. He just plain forgot.
I think that story about Carson once trying to hit his mother in the HEAD with a shovel over what he was to wear worked enough to last the campaign. It gave me the cold chills. He is a nice guy but he was already hurting himself with his sleepy demeanor at the debates.