If it’s not obvious by now, a ship called the Republican Party is perilously close to being hijacked by a populist pirate named Donald Trump. At the last three ports of call — New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — Trump overpowered his rivals, even capturing all 50 of the Palmetto State’s delegates. Armed with a blue-collar following, Trump could continue to win majorities of delegates without winning majorities of voters, and if he does, he could become unstoppable in as soon as three weeks.
Yet there is still a possibility, albeit a narrowing one, that Marco Rubio could turn the tide and ultimately win more delegates than Trump — even if he wins
fewer overall primary votes. Rubio’s increasingly tenuous path depends on his ability to win a series of winner-take-all states with high proportions of white-collar, college-educated Republicans, most critically his home state of Florida on March 15. Rubio’s path may also depend on his ability to claim delegates from low-turnout territories like Puerto Rico (which, amazingly, will select the same number of delegates as New Hampshire despite having a fraction of the GOP voters) as well as blue-leaning congressional districts with few GOP voters but many available delegates, such as those in Chicago, Maryland and coastal California....
However, to move beyond wishful thinking and achieve such tactical victories, Rubio will need to consolidate much more of the non-Trump vote and rapidly grow his support in Democratic-leaning areas in an extremely compressed window of time. That’s a tall order, but it may be GOP leaders’ last hope to stop Trump, who clearly has the best chance of winning the nomination outright by the final primaries in June. Republicans in Democratic-leaning and highly educated states and districts, which tend to vote
later in the calendar, have historically been more willing than those in red zones to support mainstream candidates like Rubio. And, there are tremendous payoffs for candidates who can consolidate support among “
blue zone Republicans.” Under RNC rules, Republican voters in heavily Democratic districts (like Nancy Pelosi’s in San Francisco) select just as many delegates as those in heavily Republican districts (like Kevin McCarthy’s in Bakersfield), making their individual votes more valuable. What’s more, a higher share of GOP primaries in blue and highly educated states and districts are of the more valuable
winner-take-all variety...