Ted Cruz Might Still Be Able To Stop Donald Trump

The good news for the Republican “establishment” is that there’s a man who might be able to stop Donald Trump. 

Cruz, who won Idaho on Tuesday while finishing second to Trump in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii, is within striking distance of Trump. So far, 29 percent of Republican primary voters have voted for Cruz as compared with 35 percent for Trump. Meanwhile, Cruz trails Trump by 100 delegates: not a trivial gap, although only one more than the 99 at stake in winner-take-all Florida next Tuesday.
The problem for Cruz is that Florida and the rest of the calendar probably aren’t as favorable to him as the states that have voted so far. (Florida looks like a Trump state as Marco Rubio loses ground.) But Cruz does have a few things going for him. He’s tended to outperform his polling almost everywhere. He’s won states in all four major regions of the country. And he potentially stands to gain if Rubio and perhaps John Kasich drop out.
The exit polls in Michigan and Mississippi asked voters who they’d pick in a two-way race between Trump and Cruz, also giving them the option to say they’d sit out the race. Among Rubio voters, on average between the two states, about 75 percent said they’d still vote in a Trump-Cruz race, and of those, 80 percent would prefer Cruz to Trump. Kasich voters were somewhat more equivocal; 55 percent said they’d still vote, and of those, two-thirds would go to Cruz over Trump. Although this is the first time the exit polls have asked about one-on-one matchups, the results are consistent with national polls showing Trump losing ground as the field winnows, as well as exit polls in previous states showing Trump being unpopular with Republicans who aren’t already supporting him.