The Madison Brief:

This week, the GOP establishment finally woke up from its stupor and realized that their party is being hijacked by an escalator going down into to a political rabbit hole located squarely under Trump Tower.

Reminiscent of Alice’s Wonderland, where up is down and down is up, Trump has drawn all of America into his bizarre campaign, where speeches are infomercials, debates are playgrounds, and rallies are WWF events.

As panic has slowly set in, the GOP’s efforts to “Stop Trump” have had little effect:

• Elder party leader, Mitt Romney, called out Trump as a “fake” and a “phony”, counting on his grandfatherly wisdom to change the hearts of angry voters.  Wrong messenger, wrong message.  

• The donor class is marshaling millions of dollars to run fear-inducing ads about the dangers of a Trump Nomination.  In reality, many in the electorate fear politicians and big money influence much more than Trump.  

• GOP campaign consultants and political pundits, hungry for a brawl on the playground, encouraged candidates to challenge Trump at his own game, hurling insults are calling him names.  Rubio fell for that bad advice, diminished his image, and now he is unlikely to win his home state of Florida .

 

STAYING ALIVE IN FLORIDA AND OHIO

Now it’s up to Rubio and Kasich to keep Trump from becoming the presumptive nominee. On Tuesday’s upcoming primary election on  March 15, one or both men need to win in their home states of Florida and Ohio.  Second place means nothing in these winner-take-all states.

RUBIO  IN FLORIDA:  Based on the most recent polls, Rubio is trailing Trump by approximately 20 points in Florida. The problem for Rubio is that he  lost control of his brand after his exchanges with Trump, and, in spite of all the hype, he didn’t build the organization he needed  to win. His campaign relied too much on Rubio’s personal appeal, believing that Floridians would support its favorite political son.  Unfortunately, they forgot that Trump is Floridian’s favorite millionaire.

It is hard to believe that Rubio will still be in the race by next week.

KASICH IN OHIO:  Kasich is the current and very popular governor of Ohio, where he has a strong organization. Polls indicate that he is leading Trump by 5 points, but his lead is tenuous.  While he had a solid debate performance two weeks ago, debates are  not his strength, and he has another one this evening.    Some think his candidacy is peaking at just the right time to knock Trump off his game.  A sign?  After being silent about Kasich for many months, today Trump tossed a jab his way by calling Kasich an “absentee governor”.  Perhaps Trump is feeling Kasich’s rise.

PROJECTED PRIMARY RESULTS BY THE NUMBERS:

Here are the current delegate totals and projections of how the race could shake out on Tuesday:

Current Delegate Totals:

• Trump 456 (44% of all delegates awarded)
• Cruz 363 (35%)
• Rubio 153 (15%)
• Kasich 54 (5%)

If Trump wins FL and OH

• Trump 718
• Cruz 440
• Rubio 186
• Kasich 65

Trump needs to win 52% of remaining delegates to reach 1,237 magic number

If Trump wins FL but loses OH to Kasich

• Trump 652
• Cruz 440
• Rubio 186
• Kasich 131

Trump needs to win 59% of remaining delegates to reach 1,237 magic number

If Trump loses FL to Rubio and loses OH to Kasich

• Trump 553
• Cruz 440
• Rubio 285
• Kasich 131

Trump needs to win 69% of remaining delegates to reach 1,237 magic number