What a circular, paradoxical, and maddening election cycle. Conservatives have been sandwiched in between a group of establishment candidates on one end and a French revolution on the other end without the ability to stand out or garner enough attention from the media. As such, so many conservative voters who are tired of the status quo have gravitated to the only revolution that is evident to them – the Trump French Revolution while the remaining 60 percent of the votes have been split between the other candidates.
Watching Rubio block Cruz’s path in Florida by refusing to exit the race even though it was crystal clear for weeks he was unable win is similar to watching a slow motion train wreck. We all saw it coming. What was the point? Florida is what happens when voters are presented with the false choice between the status quo and a revolution, albeit a French revolution in the form of Donald Trump. Rubio lost every county except for his home base of Miami-Dade. With that said, Rubio gave an extraordinary concession speech, which was probably his best message of the campaign.
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Last week, I laid out an optimistic scenario where Cruz could win more delegates than Trump if the other candidates drop out. But by staying in this long they have allowed Trump to net more delegates, not only by preventing the one man with a path from competing in Florida and Ohio, but by denying him wins in states all across the map.
Further, North Carolina, Missouri, and Illinois were all open primaries with Democrats crossing over to vote for non-conservative candidates. All of tonight’s states also had early voting, which clearly worked against Cruz. Many votes were already banked in before Cruz surged and while Rubio was still relevant at a national level. The early voting is likely to dog Cruz in the next big state – Arizona.
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If Kasich gets out of the race there is still a path to Cruz winning more delegates and coming into the convention with a real mandate. There is a path to finally making this a race between a true outsider and a true conservative vs. a charlatan who is the epitome of an insider liberal. This is the race that has been denied to us all along and it will continue to be denied to us so long as Kasich is in the race. The choice is very clear.
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- Discussion
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Message from Super Tuesday: Choose Cruz or Lose https://t.co/m8Sdg7HTzd
— Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) March 16, 2016
Horowitz’s interpretation of the numbers is slightly different than mine, but the fact remains: We are looking at a fight that lasts into mid May at least, and it is more likely with every day that we last past June 7th.
There are 303 delegates available on June 7th. To lock up the nomination (by winning all 303 which is HIGHLY unlikely due to CA and NM rules) on June 7th, you have to have 934 delegates by June 6th.
Right now I have Trump at 696 (some folks have him 10 points lower.) That means he has to get 238 delegates before June 7th in order to have a chance (again statistically small chance) of winning it all using June 7th delegates. Or, he has to win 38% of the delegates available between now and June7th (620) to even have a shot of winning the nomination with a sweep of June 7th states.
Here is why that is unlikely:
Of the states left before June 7th, only 2 are straight winner take all states: Delaware with 16 delegates and Nebraska with 36. All of the others are either proportional or do a mix of allocations between congressional districts and statewide. What does that mean? It means that the chances of taking all of the delegates in states like NY (95) or PA (71) are incredible low. Trump is far more likely to lose some congressional district delegates in states like Arizona, Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, Indiana, and Washington. Rhode Island (19) and Oregon (28) are straight proportional so there’s no way he sweeps those two. Utah is also straight proportional but it has a 50% winner take all rule. If you think Trump is going to take 50% of the vote in Utah well…
Again, what does that mean? It means that Trump hitting his magic number of 934 delegates prior to June 7 is HIGHLY unlikely. And remember, that 934-to-win-with-June 7th figure relies on you winning every single delegate on June 7th. That’s statistically improbably since New Mexico (24) is a proportional allocation state and CA (172) has 159 delegates that are tied to individual Congressional districts.
FReeper formerly known as Brothers4thID
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