SO ... IS TRUMP UNSTOPPABLE?
Donald Trump predicted on Wednesday that if Republicans rallied to deny him the GOP nomination for president, “You’d have riots.” Certainly, the billionaire has all the momentum with big gains on Tuesday, especially in Florida where he ousted Marco Rubio. But there is still a long battle ahead to get to the magic number of 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright. So what does the future look like for the candidates?
TRUMP (652 DELEGATES)
Arizona, with 58 delegates in a winner- take- all race, votes next week. Trump is leading in the polls and political website FiveThirtyEight estimates he has an 84- per- cent chance of winning. Toward the middle and end of April, Trump is expected to make strong showings in Connecticut, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Delaware and his home state of New York. He could build a sizable lead.
June 7
Another super day — California votes, with 172 delegates up for grabs, and there are another 131 delegates to be decided in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota. But Trump has not done as well as he would like in the West so far.
Can Trump win?
Trump needs 54 per cent of the remaining delegates to win the nomination ( at the moment he’s won about 47 per cent of the delegates up for grabs). The goal now of the anti-Trump forces is to keep him at least 100 votes short of the delegates needed and force a contested convention.
CRUZ (407)
Ted Cruz isn’t going away, and with Rubio out of the race he is likely to relish the upcoming fights (Cruz is already ignoring John Kasich and is describing the remaining primaries as head- to- head battles with Trump). After Arizona, Cruz will have an edge in many of the contests because of the organizational advantage he brings.
June 7
The Cruz camp believes it can almost wipe out Trump’s delegate advantage before the final contests on June 7. In California, the winner of each congressional district gets all the district’s delegates. That puts a premium on strategic targeting, Cruz’s campaign’s strength.
Can Cruz win?
“We can win pre- convention,” said Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe. But the truth may not be so simple. Cruz needs 69 per cent of the delegates still on offer and likely needs Kasich to drop out to make that a realistic target. “Cruz could yet become the true challenger to Trump,” wrote the Washington Post’s Dan Balz. “His campaign has even sketched out a scenario under which he would end up with more delegates than Trump heading into the convention. But that depends on his ability to corner Trump in a one- on- one battle in the remaining states.”
KASICH (146)
The governor of Ohio finally won a state on Tuesday — his home state, one The New York Times pointed out has elected him to nine terms in Congress and two as governor. “Still, it was a breakthrough of a kind,” wrote Alexander Burns, adding, “The pressure is on Mr. Kasich to show he can do better.” But it could be, he can’t.
June 7
Former Terminator and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has pledged his support for Kasich and was out stumping for him in Ohio. “We need John Kasich to now take charge and be at the White House,” he said. But is his support enough?
Can Kasich win?
Kasich needs 100 per cent of the remaining delegates, and that is not going to happen. His only hope is a convention where Cruz and Trump both remain unacceptable to the party establishment. “Kasich now seems likely to hang around at the periphery of the Trump- Cruz race for the next few months,” wrote The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza.
WHERE ARE WE HEADING?
NOMINATION
“Increasingly, the stage seems set for some kind of showdown on the convention floor ( and the streets outside) when the Republicans return to Cleveland,” wrote Glenn Thrush on the political website Politico. Trump still seems to believe he can win the nomination without much difficulty. However, even before Tuesday’s results, a group of conservatives was planning to meet to discuss ways to stop Trump, including a contested convention or rallying around a third- party candidate.
CONVENTION
The Republican convention takes place in Cleveland July 18- 21 and is likely to be the battleground where the nomination is decided. “We are going to go all the way to Cleveland,” Kasich promised Tuesday night. He hopes the anti-Trump and anti- Cruz forces coalesce around him after a first ballot. The most likely path for Cruz would be a deadlocked first ballot, with the Republican establishment — which has been hostile to the Texas senator but prefers him to Trump — swallowing its pride and plumping for him. And what of Trump? If he has the most delegates going into the convention, and is just shy of the nomination, ousting him would be doable, but political dynamite. “If the party installs a nominee viewed by many as illegitimate, an election loss in November is almost certain, and the party will be left so riven that it will take years to mend,” wrote T. A. Frank in Vanity Fair.
A THIRD PARTY
A contested convention would be a huge bargaining chip and the Republican establishment could support someone it favours as a more acceptable candidate. Who? Well on Wednesday, Paul Ryan, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, refused to rule out such a scenario. Former House speaker John Boehner waded into the fracas, saying he’d support his successor — Ryan — if Republicans can’t agree on a candidate at the convention. Jeb Bush, who was forced to drop out of the race last month, has also been put forward as a compromise candidate.
‘OUSTING (TRUMP) WOULD BE DOABLE, BUT POLITICAL DYNAMITE.’