An hour before polls closed in five states last night, Our Principles PAC declared that Donald Trump would sweep all five primaries. No worry, the anti-Trump outfit said. "The path to the nomination does not hinge" on any of these outcomes. Really? Well, the anti-Trump folks had an explanation. The five states "have always been identified" as tough places to stop the Trump juggernaut. So those results – Trump won all five by wide margins – are "neither surprising nor decisive."
This is delusional. Trump, in fact, is on a roll. A few weeks ago, his campaign was said to be losing speed. He had peaked. Even when he won, his margins of victory were shrinking. And he couldn't get to 50 percent.
Then he won the New York primary with 60 percent a week ago. Yes, it is his home state. But now he has followed up by capturing Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island in similar blowouts. Bill Hemmer of Fox News said he won every county in all five states.
That his victories were not surprising is an indication of how Trump has taken command of the GOP race. Ted Cruz and John Kasich have become figures in his rear view mirror. The Cruz campaign, after winning in Wisconsin on April 5, has collapsed. Cruz is desperate. He now insists Trump can't beat Hillary Clinton. Only he can. This is not a convincing argument.
"I consider myself the presumptive nominee," Trump said last night. "Absolutely." I think he's not quite there. If he wins in Indiana next week, he will be. And he's in a strong position to take the state. It will take an intervening event – a Trump blunder, say – to hold him back.
As the presumptive nominee, Trump has a new obligation. "The guy who has to unite the party is the presumptive nominee," Newt Gingrich said. "That's Donald Trump." In other words, he has to take the initiative. His Republican detractors, including many conservatives, won't come to him.
Should Trump lose in Indiana, he'll still be the favorite for the presidential nomination at the Republican nomination in Cleveland in July. He may not have reached the 1,237 delegates for a majority, but he'll be awfully close.
Cruz has designated Indiana's as the crucial primary, as if it's up to him to decide which primaries matter and which ones don't. For him, Indiana is. Losing would be a fatal blow to his campaign. And Kasich's prospects, which aren't great anyway, would dissolve as well.
Picking states to emphasize hasn't worked well for Cruz. He chose to downgrade the New Hampshire and came in third. And no Republican who didn't finish first or second in New Hampshire has gone on to win the nomination.
The shaky agreement between Cruz and Kasich to collaborate against Trump is unlikely to help either of them. Kasich is supposed to skip Indiana, leaving it to Cruz to fight Trump. But even if Kasich instructs his supporters to vote for Cruz, many won't. Just because they like Kasich doesn't mean they take orders from him. Politics doesn't work that way. A third or more of his voters may choose Trump over Cruz.
Assuming Trump wins in California on June 7, he'll be in a strong position to negotiate with unpledged delegates or former candidates such as Marco Rubio who has delegates committed to them. Rubio has 171, more than enough to put Trump over the top. In any case, Trump's chances of arriving in Cleveland with 1,237 delegates look better than ever after latest his sweep of five states.
If he's denied the nomination, his voters "at a minimum…are just not going to vote." And the Republican nominee can't win without them. The bigger question is whether Republicans can win with them and Trump as the nominee.
