Sam Wang: Losing Ohio Improves Trump’s Chances to Win the Nomination

[Renew Deal]

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The aforementioned scenario, in which Rubio drops out and Kasich stays in, may be Trump’s best option. Perhaps counterintuitively, it is worse for Trump to win Ohio since that would likely cause Kasich to withdraw. In this scenario, Trump would be left in a one-on-one matchup with Cruz. National surveys from ABC/Langer and NBC/Wall Street Journal show Cruz leading Trump by 13 and 17 percentage points. A two-candidate race might not only leave Trump far short of a majority of delegates but also open up the possibility of Cruz ending up with the most delegates.

To emulate the effect seen in those two surveys, I reassigned Rubio and Kasich's support to Cruz and Trump in a four-to-one ratio. This leads to the following distribution of outcomes.

In this scenario, Trump picks up only 548 new delegates, for a total of 1,013— barely 40 percent of delegates, far short of the necessary number for nomination. Failure to get a majority on the first ballot would then generate the open convention that has been the subject of so much speculation.

Even in this two-candidate scenario, Trump still has a shot at the nomination. Despite his record of racist, sexist, and inflammatory statements, culminating in the proto-fascism and violence of his rallies, many Republicans regard him as the lesser of available evils. Some Republican insiders see the ascendancy of Cruz as more damaging to their party in the long run.
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http://prospect.org/article/losing-ohio-improves-trump%E2%80%99s-chances-win-nomination

[BlueStreak]

1. I'm not buying it.

Trump leads in all national polls I have seen. If Kasich or Rubio drops out, Trump gets enough of their support to stay in front.

Moreover, Ohio is a winner-take-all primary. That 63 delegates. If Trump gets those, it is HUGE !!!

All but NC are winner-take-all states tomorrow. If Trump can take Ohio, Florida, Missouri and Illinois, that's around 280 delegates, and puts him very much on track to get over 50% of the delegates, regardless what happens to the other candidates.

Most of the remaining primaries are winner-take-all, so the numbers will add up quickly from now on. Trump needs under 800 to lock it up. He could get this before California.

IMHO, Trump's biggest obstacle is Kasich. If Kasich wins Ohio, then he could vault to the front for at least New York and California. That is 167 winner-take-all delegates, and that could be the one scenario that keeps Trump under 50% and therefore opens the door to a brokered convention. Trump winning Ohio reduces those odds dramatically.