ELDER PATRIOT - Desperate men do desperate things. With the inevitability of Donald Trump winning the Republican presidential nomination becoming clearer with each successive primary win and each new poll that is released, Ted Cruz dropped all pretense of being an outsider and has engineered a deal to work with John Kasich and the RNC in an attempt to deny Donald Trump a pathway to the Republican nomination. The move comes only days after a secret meeting with the RNC.
The prevailing theory is that if Kasich drops out in Indiana all of his support will coalesce around Cruz denying Trump a victory in that state. This is typical of Cruz who finds winning elections in most states difficult. Cruz has only been able to win four primaries of the 23 so far contested.
Cruz long ago realized that he couldn’t win the nomination at the voting booth so he has spent the lion’s share of his campaign’s resources working the backrooms and executing procedural eccentricities to deny the voters the candidate they have chosen.
Cruz’s partnership with Kasich is too little too late. Polls have shown support for Trump exploding in recent days and if they hold Trump will finish tomorrow’s primaries with at least 990 delegates. Cruz will be lucky to top out at 583. Trump would then have more delegates than Cruz, Kasich and Rubio combined.
More importantly after Tuesday, Trump will only need 49% of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination before the convention.
Looking ahead, winner-take-all New Jersey is a slam-dunk for Trump where he is currently polling above 51%. A win there will leave Trump needing only 43% of the 451 delegates remaining to be claimed.
The news for Cruz gets worse in California where two polls this week show Trump at 49%.
There’s simply no path to a respectable victory for Cruz, Kasich or the Republican Party.
It will be a difficult sell to the rank and file when Trump arrives if Trump arrives in Cleveland with less than the required 1237 pledged delegates but more than everyone else combined.
The only question that remains is whether the Republican elites are willing to drive their party over the cliff in order to deny Donald Trump the nomination?