Stora tråden om Donald Trump [mod]

It’s not about Trump. It’s about punishing Senator Marco Rubio and Governor John Kasich.

Aside from Donald Trump, no one in the Republican Party is actually running for president anymore. They are simply running to stop Trump. In theory, Conservatism Inc. is uniting behind Ted Cruz, as National Review has finally endorsed the Texas Senator after playing footsie for months with Marco Rubio [Ted Cruz for President, National Review, March 11, 2016]. But Cruz is all but irrelevant in the two most critical primaries on Tuesday, the winner-take-all states of Florida and Ohio. There, anti-Trump forces are demanding people exercise a complicated plan of “strategic voting” and support Rubio and John Kasich in their respective home states.

Such a plan only makes sense if Cruz doesn’t actually want to win a majority of delegates. Cruz occasionally says Trump should be defeated by the voters and that a Republican “brokered convention” would be a “disaster” . [Ted Cruz: “Donald is a disaster in the general election,” brokered convention would be bigger disaster, by Tim Hains, RealClearPolitics, March 13, 2016] However, Ted Cruz is still a corporate lawyer despite his cornpone Live Action Role Playing, and he’s leaving his options open, declaring a “contested convention” is just fine [Ted Cruz: ‘contested’ convention OK, ‘brokered’ convention not, by Dylan Baddour, Houston Chronicle, March 2016].

For this plan to work, Cruz needs Trump to lose Ohio and Florida, making it far more difficult for the frontrunner to assemble the 1237 delegates needed. For all intents and purposes, Cruz is in alliance with his so-called “Establishment” rivals. And, as Jeb!’s brother Neil Bush is now a Cruz surrogate, Cruz is part of the “Establishment” now anyway. [Bush: Why I’m supporting Ted Cruz for president, by Neil Bush, Houston Chronicle, March 10, 20

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The vote for the candidate counts towards the statewide total, but the votes for individuals running as delegates are used to tabulate the delegates for that district.

It is entirely possible, for example, that Donald Trump wins the votes within a Congressional District, but three individuals tied to the Kasich campaign win the most votes for delegates. In that situation, Kasich would win the three delegates for that district.

Maximizing the number of delegates a candidate wins in Illinois requires a very robust and sophisticated campaign organization. Tellingly, last week the Trump campaign fired its Illinois campaign manager, citing concerns that the campaign wasn’t well organized in Illinois.

While Cruz has been gaining in overall polls in Illinois, his five rallies, which touch areas represented by at least 10 Congressional Districts, are designed to maximize votes for Cruz delegates.

One Illinois political source told Breitbart News that, in early voting, there has been a significant drop-off in people voting for a candidate, but not voting for individual delegates. In other words, people are voting for their chosen candidate for the nomination, but not completely the ballot by voting for delegates.