“On Tuesday in Virginia, a 55 percent majority of Republican voters said they would be dissatisfied with Trump becoming the party’s nominee, but they did not rally behind any of his challengers,” wrote the Washington Post on March 2. “By contrast, 59 percent said they would be satisfied with Rubio … But among those who would be happy with Rubio, he won just about half.”
Meanwhile, the front-runner, described by some as a wholly unstoppable juggernaut, has managed to win most of the earlier contests, with an average of 34 percent of the vote. This race, with a solid, almost fanatical core of support around a minority candidate who too often wins against a divided majority unable to pick from a number of choices, has been puzzling many who seek a grand cause for its epic dysfunction. But to The Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last, it’s a case of bad luck, of random chance incidents that impact each other for maximum damage. He starts with three, we add three others, and come up with something like this:
