Trump’s Open Road to the GOP Nomination

Daniel McCarthy

Politics,

The debate in Miami revealed the Republican front-runner’s only real rival left is Cruz.

The Republican debate season—a season of riveting, if trashy, reality TV—has come to an anticlimactic end. There may or may not be one more debate, in Salt Lake City on March 21. But yesterday’s debate in Miami, featuring Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Marco Rubio, is all but certain to be the last one that matters. If Trump can win Ohio and Florida next Tuesday, his path to the nomination will be an open road. If he loses one or both, the prospects of a contested convention sharply rise. Yet Kasich and Rubio have reached the end of their journey even if they can win their home states next week. Kasich has little hope of winning other Midwestern states—the best he could manage in Michigan on last Saturday was third, behind Cruz as well as Trump—and Rubio has no geographic base at all beyond Florida, if he has even that.

So last night’s debate was a subdued one: the fiercely fought four-way war had effectively ended on Saturday.  Trump could afford to affect a “presidential” demeanor, or as close as he gets: soft-spoken and civil toward his rivals. Rubio had already disowned his own highly charged invective against Trump, publicly regretting alluding to the front-runner’s virile adequacy. For his last stand in Miami, he reverted to the wonkish, somewhat progressive character he cultivated early in the race. (When Trump, affecting a heavy heart, affirmed his belief that “Islam hates us,” Rubio channeled one of George W. Bush’s best qualities—his intolerance for Muslim-baiting—and alluded to the patriotism of Muslims who have fought and died for the United States.)