John Kasich is now 0-for-30 in races outside of his home state of Ohio, and he has managed to finish second in just four of those states. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, has eight wins and thirteen runner-up finishes, not counting the win in his home state of Texas. One would think there would no longer be any debate over which candidate is most capable of consolidating the anti-Donald Trump vote.
Yet some make the following argument: Since Cruz couldn’t beat Trump in the South, which is Cruz’s strongest region, he cannot be expected to beat Trump elsewhere. In truth, however, this argument is based on a false premise. For the South isn’t Cruz country; it’s Trump country. It is not even close to being Cruz’s strongest region—at least not in a race against Trump.
The myth that the South is Cruz’s strongest region seems to date from Cruz’s having originally described Super Tuesday, in which nearly half of the contests were in Southern states, as his “firewall.” That presumably would have been true had Cruz ended up running against a typical candidate, say against Kasich, Scott Walker, or Jeb Bush. When Donald Trump became the Republican frontrunner, that all changed. Yet the myth of Cruz’s reliance on the South gets repeated as if Trump hadn’t altered the dynamics at all.
In fact, the South has been Trump’s best region—by far. In the eleven Southern states, taking in Virginia and Kentucky to the north and Arkansas and Louisiana to the west, Trump is undefeated—having posted 11 wins and 0 losses. Indeed, if any trio of adjacent states marks the heart of Trump country, it’s Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Trump doubled up his nearest opponent (Cruz) in Alabama (43 to 21 percent), got 47 percent next door in the Magnolia State, and got 46 percent across the border in the Sunshine State.
Elsewhere, however, the story has been very different. Outside of the South, Trump’s winning percentage is below .500—he has 9 wins and 11 losses. Outside of the South, Cruz has matched Trump win-for-win—they have 9 wins apiece.
In terms of overall votes, in the South, Trump has beaten Cruz by a tally of 40 to 24 percent. Outside of the South, Trump has beaten Cruz by a tally of 34 to 30 percent. (In the South, Cruz has beaten Kasich by a tally of 24 to 7 percent. Outside of the South, Cruz has beaten Kasich by a tally of 30 to 18 percent.)
Indeed, Cruz has won in every region that has been contested to date except the South. He’s won in the Midwest (Iowa), the Northeast (Maine), the Great Plains (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas), the Frontier West (Utah, Idaho, Wyoming), and outside of the Lower 48 (Alaska). (The only region that hasn’t yet been contested is the Pacific West, which will feature closed primaries.)
In short, there is reason to believe that Cruz can beat Trump outside of the South, chief among them that he has matched Trump’s winning percentage in the 20 non-Southern states to date. Moreover, if Kasich hadn’t taken 10 percent of the vote in Missouri, Cruz surely would have won there as well—rather than losing by 0.2 points—which would have given Cruz a better won-lost record than Trump outside of the South to date. (Kasich’s 20 percent of the vote in Illinois might also have swung that state to Trump.)
Indeed, in a race where the frontrunner is disliked by a large portion of the party and has yet to get a majority of the vote in even a single state, having a non-viable candidate siphon off votes from the principal challenger may be the frontrunner’s only real path to victory.
Jeffrey H. Anderson, author of “The Main Street Tax Plan,” is a Hudson Institute senior fellow.
