The notion of Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee, once widely thought to be an impossibility, is now widely being described—in respectable circles, nonetheless—as a near-inevitability. Generally sensible and level-headed people are starting to concoct all sorts of crazy plans to thwart the Trump juggernaut: All but one candidate should voluntarily drop out of the race; Marco Rubio should name Ted Cruz as his vice-presidential pick (or vice versa) in February; the next debate should be held outside on the prairie, where Trump’s hair might not be able to withstand the gusts. (Okay, nobody has yet proposed that last one, but it’s likely coming soon.)
Here’s another idea: How about if Rubio and Cruz just focus on beating Trump? So far, Trump has gotten 32.7 percent of the vote. Yes, he got 45.9 percent in Nevada, but it stands to reason that Trump would do well in the Wild West, particularly since he owns a casino there. Plus, almost nobody voted in Nevada. Trump got fewer than 35,000 votes—fewer than he’d gotten anywhere else and less than 15 percent as many as he got in South Carolina. The Rose Bowl holds more people than voted in Nevada (95,000 to 75,000).
Overall, Trump has gotten 32.7 of the votes cast—24.3 percent in Iowa, 35.3 percent in New Hampshire, 32.5 percent in South Carolina, and 45.9 percent in Nevada. Meanwhile, Cruz has gotten 20.7 percent of the vote, and Rubio has gotten 20.0 percent.
So, if Cruz and Rubio are each able to pry 4 points’ worth of Trump’s support away from him—less than one out of every eight Trump voters to date—the three candidates’ tallies would then look as follows: Trump, 24.7 percent; Cruz, 24.7 percent; Rubio, 24.0 percent. In that scenario, Trump wouldn’t win the nomination.
Given that Cruz has probably focused more on Rubio than on Trump to date, while Rubio hasn’t really yet focused on Trump at all, this scenario doesn’t seem farfetched. Nor is it at all clear that Rubio would have a harder time winning a three-way race with Trump and Cruz (where he’d be the sole establishment candidate versus two outsiders) than a two-way race with Trump (given how much GOP voters have favored outsider candidates to date).
But if Rubio and Cruz continue to focus more on each other than on the Donald, then a result that’s not at all inevitable will eventually become inescapable.
