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Following a second-place finish in the Nevada caucuses that many thought established him as the leading alternative to frontrunner Donald Trump, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has seen his campaign stumble badly, winning only two contests (Minnesota and Puerto Rico) while coming in behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in most of the primaries and caucuses since and even coming in behind Ohio Gov. John Kasich in several states. Over at FiveThirtyEight.com, data guru Nate Silver diagnoses a key shortcoming of the ... Read More >>

In this screw­ball year, it’s dan­ger­ous to say any­thing defin­it­ively, but it sure looks like Tues­day’s Ohio Re­pub­lic­an primary will be the make-or-break point for the “Stop Trump” move­ment. This is as­sum­ing that Don­ald Trump beats Marco Ru­bio in Flor­ida, which seems a bit more likely than not. Then it comes down to Ohio, where John Kasich has been hold­ing a mod­est lead in the polls.

Individually, we get why Donald Trump’s rivals mostly backed away from challenging the GOP frontrunner in last night’s 12th — and possibly final — Republican debate. For Marco Rubio, who saw his fav/unfav drop eight points in the past month in the NBC/WSJ poll, the nicer debate allowed him to dial back from the nasty, personal insults that dominated the previous two gatherings. For Ted Cruz, the current status quo helps him get closer to his desired one-on-one matchup against Trump. And for John Kasich, he simply followed the same strategy he’s been using throughout this race.

With yesterday’s contests in the rearview mirror and all eyes turning to pivotal matchups next Tuesday, Republican candidates are charting out their paths to clinching the GOP nomination.

But most aren’t looking all that likely.

GOP debate winners and losers

Thursday night’s Republican debate in Miami saw a dramatic shift in tone from recent GOP clashes, which had been marked by rancorous exchanges and name-calling.

The change surprised even front-runner Donald Trump who said at one point, “I cannot believe how civil it’s been up here.”

Never has there been a luckier front-runner. Donald Trump’s three opponents not only declined to launch fierce attacks, but largely left him alone at Thursday night’s Republican debate in Miami, Florida—for different reasons. Marco Rubio was forced to return to a positive message in the chastening wake of his failed antic and raunchy riffs against the billionaire.

The good news for the Republican “establishment” is that there’s a man who might be able to stop Donald Trump. The bad news is that it’s Ted Cruz, someone they may dislike almost as much.

Cruz, who won Idaho on Tuesday while finishing second to Trump in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii, is within striking distance of Trump. So far, 29 percent of Republican primary voters have voted for Cruz as compared with 35 percent for Trump.