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Donald Trump keeps his lead in winner-take-all Florida, at 44 percent over Ted Cruz’s 24 percent and Marco Rubio’s 21 percent. In Ohio, Governor John Kasich is tied with Trump 33 percent to 33 percent, in two of the big winner-take-all delegate prizes up on Tuesday.

All eyes are on Tuesday’s primaries in five states, especially Florida and Ohio, for the clearest clues yet as to whether GOP front-runner Donald Trump can ride his momentum to the 1,237 delegates he’ll need to secure the nomination.

Tuesday’s primaries are important not only because two of them are happening in candidates’ home states, but also because it’s the first day that states can allocate their delegates on a winner-take-all basis-meaning whoever wins certain states going forward will get a much bigger delegate prize out of it.

Marco Rubio’s campaign has a new strategy to block Donald Trump from winning Ohio’s coveted, winner-take-all delegate haul: urging Ohio Republicans to vote for their governor John Kasich.

At a press conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, Rubio admitted, “John Kasich has a better chance of winning Ohio than I do.”

Donald Trump has spent much of his campaign selling himself as a maker of great deals. But in the next phase of the campaign, the author of The Art of the Deal may be confronted with the ultimate dealmaking challenge, gaming the rulebook and horse-trading for delegates at what could be a contested convention. And if that situation comes to pass, it’s one in which his opponents have a distinct advantage going in.

Late last month, the But­ler County Re­pub­lic­an Party un­veiled Rick San­tor­um, the pres­id­en­tial-can­did­ate-turned-Marco-Ru­bio-sur­rog­ate, as the head­line speak­er for its an­nu­al Lin­coln Day din­ner here. Or­gan­izers were ex­pect­ing re­cord at­tend­ance, and not just be­cause the event would take place three days be­fore the Ohio primary. The party was also set to hon­or former House Speak­er John Boehner at his first ma­jor pub­lic ap­pear­ance since his re­tire­ment.

Trump’s Clumsy Pivot to the General Election

We tuned in to the Republican debate Thursday night expecting fireworks. Instead we heard the hissing crackle of a wet fuse refusing to light.

Trump seemed somnolent to the point of comatose. Perhaps he has internal polls indicating that his ever-more-outrageous shtick was finally beginning to hurt him with voters; more likely, he’s decided that it’s time to prepare for the general election. But he didn’t seem to know quite how.