Donald Trump
absolutely shattered the goals we had set for his performance yesterday. In Connecticut, the goal was 50% and he got
58%. In Delaware, 50% was the goal and 61% was the result. In Rhode Island, the goal was 50% and he got
64%. In Pennsylvania, the goal was 45%, and he got 57%. In Maryland, the goal
was 43%, and he took 54%. In short, he killed. He also took almost all of the
delegates that were in the up-for-grabs category and is now about 250 delegates
away from clinching.
As a result, we need
to go back and clean up what we said before. We had suggested that it would be
very difficult for Trump to get to the majority of 1237 delegates. It still will
not be easy, but given last night’s overwhelming results, we are nowhere near
as sure that he won’t get there. In fact, we now believe he is on pace to reach
1237. The Indiana primary on Tuesday, however, could still do some serious
damage to that effort.
Perhaps that is why Ted Cruz chose to make today’s dramatic
announcement of a Vice Presidential pick in Carly Fiorina. This seems like a
good idea. It gets Cruz back in the news, which he desperately needed, and it
reminds people of a flaw in Trump. Who could forget Trump asking in one of the
early debates how anyone could vote for “that face,” referring to Carly
Fiorina? It may all be too little too late. Given how certain the media is
sounding that Trump will win everything, however, a new loss in Indiana might
be worse for Trump than it would be in the absence of that hype.
There also remains the question of whether Cruz has enough “stolen”
delegates so that he could still steal the nomination even in the absence of
the votes and whether such a move would possibly be tolerated.
Indiana looks very good for Trump now. Sometimes things break
in a direction and there is no turning back.
Quickly, on the Democratic side, we predicted Clinton to win
in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, which she did. We picked
her to win Rhode Island too, which she didn’t. Still, we got close in the
overall delegate count. We thought Clinton would win 214 delegates and Sanders
would win 170 delegates. In the end, Clinton got 218 delegates to Sanders’ 166.
We’ll say more about the general election later this week, as
well as ideas about the Republican side in Indiana, which might tell us all we
need to know.
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