What a difference two weeks have made for the #NeverTrump campaign. On the night of April 5, Ted Cruz decisively won the Wisconsin primary, with Donald Trump stuck in second place in familiar 35 percent territory. At his victory event, Cruz, who took home 36 of Wisconsin’s 42 delegates, declared the state a “turning point” in the race.
Cruz allies in the #NeverTrump effort were jubilant. “‘Member when some said we couldn’t stop @realDonaldTrump? Wrong,” tweeted Katie Packer of the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC. “Congrats to all who stopped him from hijacking GOP #NeverTrump #cleveland.”
Of course, Cruz and his #NeverTrump supporters well knew they were headed into a rough patch just two weeks later in New York. But in the end, it turned out to be rougher than some thought.
Trump’s margin of victory in New York — 60.5 percent of the vote to John Kasich’s 25.1 percent and Cruz’s 14.5 percent — was massive. It meant that Trump would take home nearly 90 of New York’s 95 delegates, with the rest going to Kasich. Cruz’s take was zero.
Now, it is Trump who is declaring a turning point as he heads from New York into contests next week in Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Maryland — all states in which Trump is expected to do well and build on his nearly 300-delegate lead over Cruz. “We don’t don’t have much of a race anymore,” Trump said in a brief victory speech at Trump Tower in Manhattan. “Based on what I’m seeing on television, Sen. Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated.”
“We have won millions more votes than Sen. Cruz,” Trump continued. “We’ve won…close to 300 delegates more than Sen. Cruz. We’re really, really rocking.”
#NeverTrump remained unfazed. “As expected, Trump won his home state, as did Kasich and Cruz,” said Tim Miller of Our Principles in an email exchange. “Delegate dynamics unchanged. We anticipated he’d sweep tonight and even if he had, it was a tough road getting to 1,237. All the flaws in his candidacy are still there — a home state win can’t mask them.”
Packer, too, said #NeverTrump is as determined as ever. “We fully intend to take this to the convention floor,” she told Bloomberg. “I don’t care how many state he wins. It’s a delegate count.”
The truth is, #NeverTrump couldn’t try very hard in New York; it was just too expensive. They knew Trump would win, and even attempting to reduce his margin of victory would have taken millions of dollars that could be spent more effectively elsewhere. So they encouraged small, targeted efforts to deny Trump a delegate here, and a delegate there, even as they didn’t show much muscle against Trump statewide.
The strategy wasn’t universally praised. Immediately after Wisconsin, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, who directed the Jeb Bush Super PAC, tweeted, “My guess: Trump will get <44% in NY and not reach expectations.” On Tuesday night, after Murphy received the inevitable Twitter razzing for being wrong about New York, he answered, “Yup. I was wrong post WI. I thought Stop Trump would hit him hard in w NY and keep him in low 40’s. They should’ve.”
But they didn’t. So now, the question is what next for #NeverTrump?
They will probably work hardest toward blocking Trump in Indiana, which holds its primary on May 3, and in which Cruz is thought to have a solid chance. But before that, the race will hit what could be an inflection point. Next week, most likely, Cruz will be mathematically eliminated from winning 1,237 delegates before the Republican convention. Like Kasich, he will no longer have even a theoretical chance of entering the convention a winner. His campaign will be entirely negative — to keep Trump below 1,237. In effect, every vote for Cruz will be a strategic vote.
Will that change the dynamics of the race? Trump obviously thinks so; he mentioned it specifically in his New York victory speech. And Trump will certainly remind voters of the fact in coming campaigning. What effect, if any, that will have on voters is just not clear. But the GOP race is — again — about to enter uncharted territory.
