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Wednesday, March 16, 2016

The Ides of March GOP Primaries 2016

Tweets of the Night
If you follow my tweets, they fairly well tell the story of the night. I try to be objective and so ironically I found the Trumpians liking and retweeting a number of tweets, driving some tweets to hundreds of impressions. This is odd for someone who is #NeverTrump.

I've been getting deluged by the Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich email campaigns for contributions (not going to happen). The Rubio emails never really said they had taken the lead on Trump even in their internal polls. It was sad to see him lose by over 18 points in his home state. But then I thought Santorum was untouchable after losing his Senate seat by a similar margin in 2006 and he came back to battle Romney for the 2012 nomination. The governor's seat will be open in 2 years, and I would think Rubio is an automatic contender, but his last year of voting absences and failed Presidential bid will be issues. I think there were missed opportunities but there's no doubt his position in the failed Senate immigration bill hurt him and he never really recovered. I think it's a shame because I still think he positions better than all the others against the Dems in the general election.

Kasich did what he needed to do and beat Trump by double-digits, better than a number of recent polls. The problem is too little, too late. He would need to win almost every remaining delegate to win the nomination, which isn't going to happen. At this point, the most he could do is maybe play for a chunk of delegates in the Midwest and Northeast and maybe join a fusion ticket headed by Cruz. Cruz could also make a similar deal with Rubio.

Whereas Trump would have made the math even worse for Cruz, Cruz needs to gain nearly two-thirds of remaining delegates and he's now over 200 delegates behind. He would not only need to beat Trump in almost all remaining contests, all but impossible in the late April primaries, but by significant majorities given proportional or hybrid delegate assignment rules. It may be his best option to accept a spot on Trump's ticket.

Cruz finally gets Rubio out which should unify the conservative vote but it may be too little too late. Cruz got shut out of Ohio and Florida's winner-take-all delegates and (at 3 AM EDT), AP still hasn't made a call on MO, although it looks like Trump won by an eyelash.Trump will probably win most of the outstanding delegates from IL and MO, which gives Cruz fewer delegates to fight now. So Trump may be 230+ delegates ahead. I think he has to win winner-take-all Arizona next week.
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