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Inside Cruz’s state-by-state plan to defeat Trump

It sounds like a nightmare for Donald Trump’s opponents: he sweeps Ohio and Florida on Tuesday and storms ahead with more than half the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination.

But for Ted Cruz, it would be a dream — if it forces Marco Rubio and John Kasich to quit — that delivers the two-man contest he’s been wanting for months.

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.

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.

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 >>