Republican Ides of March Tuesday results thread (N. Marianas start at 4:30am ET)

[Mr. Morden]

DAVID WASSERMAN 11:20 PM
Here’s my gut takeaway from tonight’s primaries: It’s more difficult to see how Trump DOESN’T get to 1,237 delegates from here. He’s beating Cruz in red states, and he’s likely to beat Kasich in future blue states. Most of the delegates at stake from here on out will come from winner-take-all states. Whether #NeverTrump forces realize it or not, they are losing.

Ah, but here is the thing with Wasserman’s delegate targets:

The delegate targets that 538 uses for each state are basically assuming a static 4-man race.  They’re asking “Given where this candidate tends to run strong, how well would they have to be doing nationally in order to end up at 1237?  And then once we’ve figured that out, how would that national performance trickle down into delegate performances in individual states?”

But that’s assuming a static race.  Now that Rubio has dropped out, you have a brand new set of voters freed up, and the polling suggests that Rubio supporters mostly dislike Trump, and are more likely to swing to Cruz or Kasich.  Maybe that won’t actually happen, but if it does, then Cruz and/or Kasich could start to become competitive in places where they haven’t been competitive so far.  And if that doesn’t happen for Kasich, then Kasich may well drop out himself, freeing up yet more voters, which could split any number of ways between Cruz and Trump.

In any case, two and a half plus months to go before California, so there’s plenty of time for more twists and turns in the race.  Whether Trump makes it to 1237 or not is still very much uncertain.

[PeteB]

DAVID WASSERMAN 11:20 PM
Here’s my gut takeaway from tonight’s primaries: It’s more difficult to see how Trump DOESN’T get to 1,237 delegates from here. He’s beating Cruz in red states, and he’s likely to beat Kasich in future blue states. Most of the delegates at stake from here on out will come from winner-take-all states. Whether #NeverTrump forces realize it or not, they are losing.

Ah, but here is the thing with Wasserman’s delegate targets:

The delegate targets that 538 uses for each state are basically assuming a static 4-man race.  They’re asking “Given where this candidate tends to run strong, how well would they have to be doing nationally in order to end up at 1237?  And then once we’ve figured that out, how would that national performance trickle down into delegate performances in individual states?”

But that’s assuming a static race.  Now that Rubio has dropped out, you have a brand new set of voters freed up, and the polling suggests that Rubio supporters mostly dislike Trump, and are more likely to swing to Cruz or Kasich.  Maybe that won’t actually happen, but if it does, then Cruz and/or Kasich could start to become competitive in places where they haven’t been competitive so far.  And if that doesn’t happen for Kasich, then Kasich may well drop out himself, freeing up yet more voters, which could split any number of ways between Cruz and Trump.

In any case, two and a half plus months to go before California, so there’s plenty of time for more twists and turns in the race.  Whether Trump makes it to 1237 or not is still very much uncertain.

Thank you for nicely stating the obvious.  The race has changed dramatically and anyone who is using past month's data and "pundit rationale", to predict the future, will be very surprised.  In addition to what you stated, there will also be a change in tone and discourse in the race.  With only Kasich and Cruz left, this will become a more serious race and any additional Trump theatrics will start backfiring on him.  In fact, Trump's utter lack of knowledge of the issues will become glaringly obvious.  That is why Trump is declining any more debates.

We'll see if the frontrunner can actually prove his Wharton MBA is worth something, and start coming up with solutions to problems.  However, I wouldn't necessarily assume that Trump now automatically wins any future states, even those where he was the heavy favorite until yesterday!

[MK]

Too much os being made of Rubio voters ...   did any of you forget that he obviously didn't have enough support to win any contest ( yeah Minnesota lol)  . If he had he wouldn't be out of the race now.  Whatever support he had has already gone to others.

[Mr. Morden]

Too much os being made of Rubio voters ...   did any of you forget that he obviously didn't have enough support to win any contest ( yeah Minnesota lol)  . If he had he wouldn't be out of the race now.  Whatever support he had has already gone to others.

If he hadn't been in the race yesterday, Cruz most likely would have won Missouri, and maybe North Carolina too.  And that comes at the end of Rubio's collapse.  Every national poll since January has had Rubio in double digits, and most of our polls of the remaining primary states similarly have him in double digits.  That's enough of the vote at play to potentially make a difference in these "delegate target" models.

[Mr. Morden]

Current popular vote standing:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R

Trump 37%
Cruz 27%
Rubio 17%
Kasich 13%
Carson 3%
Bush 1%

How long does Kasich need to stay in the race for in order to catch up to Rubio for third place?  New York?

[ElectionsGuy]

The Former Confederacy, Republican Primaries 2016

Trump: 4,545,923 (37.2%)
Cruz: 3,482,632 (28.5%)
Rubio: 2,532,632 (20.7%)
Kasich: 802,633 (6.6%)
Others: 844,564 (6.9%)

[Maxwell]

Interesting - In Non-Southern primaries, it's Kasich who gets second with 24.9% (behind Trump at 37.6%), with Cruz in third at 24.0%. I suspect this is the result of the very high turnout Ohio primary.