Ted Cruz doesn’t see any reason to drop out; he won Iowa and is second in delegates. In a race with five candidates left, why should the guy with the second-most delegates, second-most votes, and an actual state victory quit the race instead of the other guys?
Marco Rubio doesn’t see any reason to drop out; he’s come in second in the last two races and he has 15 delegates to Cruz’s 16. He’s about 7,000 votes behind Cruz and it’s quite possible he’ll be in second place after the SEC primary.
With both Cruz and Rubio sticking around for the long haul, we can expect more results like South Carolina and Nevada — Trump getting 33 to 45 percent and Rubio and Cruz splitting about 20 to 25 percent each.
Picture a Republican convention in Cleveland, where Trump enters having won roughly 40 percent and Rubio and Cruz have won roughly 30 percent each. It’s just about impossible to imagine Trump picking either Rubio or Cruz as a running mate — he’s contended both men are Constitutionally ineligible! — and neither Rubio or Cruz appear to be the kind of men who would relish being Trump’s second fiddle.
Jonah, among others, floats a Rubio-Cruz ticket. Even if you could get Rubio and Cruz to agree to that, you can imagine how livid Trump supporters would be if the delegates backed Rubio-Cruz or Cruz-Rubio instead of the candidate who won the most votes and most delegates. A walkout, protests… you can envision the furious Trump denunciation of the “sham” process. As we’ve noted, “sore loser laws” don’t apply to presidential candidates in most states. Trump could run an independent bid, and he would take a lot of his supporters with him.
There’s no easy way to put a 40-30-30 party back together again.