• March 28, 2024

Ted Cruz is on His Last Legs

crz

Ted Cruz has bragged for two weeks that he is the only person who can beat Donald Trump consistently.  Personally, I don’t think winning in less than 1 in 3 primaries is winning with consistency.  To me winning consistently would be winning at least 50% of the time and more likely 67% of the time.  But other factors are even more important to Cruz’s chances to win the nomination.

Currently, Cruz has 359 delegates.  But 164 of those delegates came from primaries that he lost.  He received delegates in states he won, but 104 of those came from Texas and as everyone knows, you always win your home state.  (With the lone exception of Al Gore, who lost the presidency in 2000, when Tennessee slapped him down)  So basically, excluding Texas and states he lost, Cruz won a grand total of 71 delegates.  Why is that significant?  Because the winner take all primaries begin on the 15th and Texas does not have another primary.

On the 15th, Ohio (66), Florida (99), Illinois (69), Missouri (52), North Carolina (72) are all winner take all primaries.  Trump currently leads the polls in all of the states mentioned.  That’s a total of 358 delegates.  That pushes Trump almost 67% of all the delegates needed to win on the first ballot. (816 of 1237 needed)  Upcoming states with winner take all delegates are New Jersey (51), Pennsylvania (71), Wisconsin (42) , and California (172).  That’s another 436 delegates.  This does not include all the other states that Trump will win by big numbers like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. Maryland.

Cruz had one chance to stem the tide, but it would require both Rubio and Kasich to drop out of the race before next Tuesday.  Cruz is third in polling for both Ohio and Florida.  Without those two states Cruz can’t win.

The good news is that Cruz is young and as long as he keeps his bitterness in check, he has a great chance of becoming president in the future.

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