As always, my assessments of winners and losers from the recent primaries and caucuses are based not on the objective percentages of the vote or number of delegates won by the respective candidates but on the long view: How much progress did each candidate make toward his strategic objectives?
Donald Trump: Slight Winner – Trump continued to win a majority of the states up for grabs, but he also continued to do so with pluralities and not the majorities needed to lock up the nomination before the convention. Seen in this light, Trump did not accomplish his strategic objective, and in prior “take-aways” columns I have classified him as a loser for that reason. This time, however, his victories were by more substantial margins. More importantly, though, Ted Cruz is solidifying himself as Trump’s main rival, which might actually be helpful to Trump in the end. The goal of Rubio and Kasich is to deny Trump a majority of delegates on the first ballot at the convention with the theory being that Trump cannot expand his base of support among the delegates to be able to compile a majority on any subsequent ballot. The theory is that either Rubio or Kasich would be an acceptable consensus candidate for the anti-Trump majority. Cruz’s calculation has to be different. He, like Trump, has established himself as an outsider, albeit one with less charisma and more adherence to conservative principles. Cruz knows that he stands little chance of being the consensus candidate among the anti-Trump delegates without a yuge amount a leverage. If no one has a majority of delegates going into the convention, then the more delegates Cruz controls (no pun intended), the more power he has to try to force the anti-Trump factions to coalesce behind him. Why? Because unlike Rubio and Kasich, a substantial number of Cruz’s delegates, if released, would go to Trump – potentially enough to put Trump over the top. But it is far from clear that the remaining candidates and the establishment would prefer Cruz to Trump. So, If Trump can’t win a majority of delegates outright, his best chance to win at a convention is for Cruz to be a strong second and for the remaining candidates and the establishment to decide that Trump is preferable to Cruz.
Ted Cruz: Big Winner – As discussed above, Cruz has now solidified himself as the main rival to Donald Trump. Rubio and Kasich both continued to underperform, which gives Cruz increasing credibility in the remaining contests and increasing leverage at a brokered convention.
John Kasich: Slight loser – Kasich’s support did go up by a significant amount at the expense of Rubio, which is a win. But his numbers nevertheless remain low, and Cruz has pulled far ahead of both Rubio and Kasich, meaning that even a win in Ohio might not be enough to give Kasich much, if any, momentum. And the most recent poll that I’ve seen has Trump beating Kasich by 6 points in Ohio. If Kasich loses Ohio, he’s out. But even if he wins, his best result would be to have a respectable enough overall showing to be a credible contender to be the consensus anti-Trump candidate at a brokered convention. It’s looking less likely that he’ll be able to achieve this objective.
Marco Rubio: Big loser – It pains me to say this because I have been a Rubio supporter since September, but there’s no way to sugar-coat this. Rubio’s showings in the post-Super Tuesday races have been anemic and humiliating. As I said above regarding Kasich, even a win in Florida might not be enough to get Rubio back into this race. But that point likely is moot as the most recent poll shows Trump leading Rubio by double-digits (again – after Rubio had narrowed that gap last week). With these kinds of results, it appears unlikely that he could make a compelling case to be the consensus anti-Trump candidate at a brokered convention.
Democrats: Hillary Clinton remains the winner. Yes, Sanders pulled off a surprise victory in Michigan, but Hillary still got a majority of the delegates due to the DNC’s superdelegates. Hillary now has a prohibitive lead, and it is hard to see how Sanders could possibly overtake her.
What now? At this point, it still appears that we are headed for a brokered convention. What’s changed is that Ted Cruz is now establishing himself as the power broker for that convention in that he controls the delegates that Trump would need to win the nomination. This means that it is increasingly likely that the nominee will either be Trump or Cruz depending on which of these two candidates is less unpalatable to the remaining anti-Trump candidates and their delegates.
