**** Elections thread *****

[JKDS]

Cruz has 0 chance of being within striking distance. Cruz and rubio are delusional, and one needed to drop out before today

[wufwugy]

Cruz has 0 chance of being within striking distance. Cruz and rubio are delusional, and one needed to drop out before today

They both are potentially in striking distance, mostly due to the proportional nature of today's delegate allocation and due to how most of the states for the next few weeks would go to a combined Rubio-Cruz ticket. Even if Trump were to come out with >50% of the delegates after today, a Rubio/Cruz alliance would most likely keep him below that level until the bloc of NE states (in April IIRC), which could be countered by the finishing stretch of the West Coast going to his remaining opponent.

Allocation of delegates is not nearly as good as it looks for Trump. A lot of delegates today won't actually go to him even if he wins the states, and those don't include the ones that are proportioned to those who get >20% of the vote. Notice how Hillary beat Obama on votes yet still lost in delegates. Delegate accrual is weird and Trump is not as favored as it seems.

Frankly, I think it is more likely to be a Rubio/Cruz ticket if they think he could then win Florida. Rubio can probably beat Trump in some important winner-take-all states later in the cycle, but that may only work with significant Cruz backing since a solid chunk of Cruz voters do not want to support Rubio at this point.