If Cruz wins New Hampshire

[Coolface Sock #42069]

How does he do it, and does that mean he's got the nomination effectively sewn up?

[cinyc]

Cruz hasn't even been advertising on TV in New Hampshire until today and doesn't have the ground game there that he had in Iowa.  He's not winning New Hampshire.  You'd need a further fragmentation of the establishment vote and Trump implosion.  The establishment is coalescing around Rubio and Trump hasn't quite imploded yet - though he's hurt himself in the past day or so.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Cruz hasn't even been advertising on TV in New Hampshire until today and doesn't have the ground game there that he had in Iowa.  He's not winning New Hampshire.

And yet even without both of those things, he is in a competitive third place and could benefit from a Trump collapse.

I'm not saying it's likely; I just wondered if there was any plausible scenario where it could happen.

[Mike Thick]

I guess it's possible, if extremely unlikely. If Trump suffers some massive collapse in the next few days and his support goes mostly to Cruz, he could narrowly win over Rubio. It would set him up with an extremely favorable map, although I wouldn't say the nom would be sewed up.

[cinyc]

Cruz hasn't even been advertising on TV in New Hampshire until today and doesn't have the ground game there that he had in Iowa.  He's not winning New Hampshire.

And yet even without both of those things, he is in a competitive third place and could benefit from a Trump collapse.

I'm not saying it's likely; I just wondered if there was any plausible scenario where it could happen.

Like I said, Cruz would need a Trump collapse with most Trump voters flocking to him, followed by Bush, Kasich and Cruz taking support from Rubio.  That's not very likely to happen.