Well, it’s another "super" Tuesday, and that must mean Donald Trump is angling to move even closer to the GOP nomination, an outcome that’s horrified the establishment and seemed so remote just nine months ago as to be laughable.
But the only one laughing now is Trump, and boy, oh boy is he laughing hard.
With 460 delegates awarded to Ted Cruz’s 370, the billionaire can effectively lock up the nomination if he manages to win in Ohio and Florida today, states where Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Marco Rubio (respectively) are for all intents and purposes making their last stands.
The Sunshine State should, by all accounts, be an easy win for Trump. A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday showed Trump with a dominating 46% to 22% lead over Rubio, who is facing a humiliating defeat in his home state where Trump made multiple campaign stops yesterday and where Sarah Palin told supporters that the billionaire doesn't have time for "punk-ass little thuggery" from protesters.
“Tomorrow’s the day where we’re going to shock the country and we’re going to do what needs to be done,” Rubio said Monday, in Jacksonville. “We’re going to win the 99 delegates here in Florida.’’
Somehow we doubt it. And so does WSJ, who wrote the following today: "In Florida, more than 1.1 million Republicans—roughly half of the votes expected to be cast overall—have already voted. That total includes more than 100,000 GOP ballots cast in Mr. Rubio’s home base of Miami-Dade County, where he needs to rack up an overwhelming margin to offset a double-digit deficit in statewide polls."
Kasich stands a better chance in Ohio than Rubio does in Florida. The governor is tied with Trump at 38% according to the abovementioned Quinnipiac University poll and he's said he'll drop out it he doesn't win the state. “You will see me pick up steam and have momentum,” he told reporters. “I may go to the convention with more delegates than any of ’em.”
Obviously, that's a virtual impossibility. Trump thinks so too. “This is a place I wanted to be,” he said, at a stop in Ohio. “This is going to do it. Ohio is going to make America great again. Kasich cannot make America great again.”
Trump also suggested in Tampa that if he can win Ohio and Florida and thereby effectively secure the nomination, he can stop attacking his GOP rivals and focus on Hillary Clinton. “The beauty would be if we win Florida and we win Ohio we can go and attack Hillary, no more attacking each other,” he said on Monday . “The Republican Party has to come together.”
Trust us, even if Trump stops the personal attacks on the other Republican candidates, there is no chance of him uniting the party. In fact, as Bloomberg outlined on Monday, the establishment will likely employ all manner of tactics to stop him from getting the nomination. “This will be a decisive day,” Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who served as a spokesperson for 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney told Bloomberg. “The only avenue to stop Trump at this point is to deny him the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the nomination outright and force a contested convention [but] even if there is a contested convention, Trump's rabid supporters would likely dominate the majority of delegate spots and make it hard for other candidates to pick up the votes needed to win the nomination after the first ballot."
Click below for an interactive delegate simulator from WSJ:
Should Trump sweep all five states today, he may have an easy path to the nomination. "They're already calling," he told NBC, referring to the GOP establishment names who have doubted his cadidacy. "The biggest people in the party are calling." Here's the latest NBC poll:
On the Democratic side of things, Clinton will seek to reverse last week's surprise loss in Michigan. She leads in Florida and Ohio, although Sanders hopes to use a similar strategy (i.e. appealing to workers who may be disaffected over manufacturing jobs lost in trade deals the former Secretary of State supported) to garner support in the Buckeye state as he did on the way to scoring last week's upset win. Here's the latest national poll:
But let's face it, no one cares about that. It's all about Trump. Even Hillary knows it.
“Man, you guys cannot stop talking about him,” she scolded on MSNBC Monday night. “He is a dangerous presence and, you know, it’s just like candy by the bushel.”
Eat it up America. You know you want to...