Krauthammer: Who Will Drop Out — Cruz or Rubio?

On Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer laid out some of the scenarios that could unfold in this Republican presidential primary contest based on what had happened a night early in the Super Tuesday primary states.

Krauthammer said both Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) have cases as to why they both should remain in the race. However, Krauthammer said there was a third scenario where it could come down to the convention, which if it isn’t GOP front-runner Donald Trump, it could be a “calamity.”

“Well, seven out of 11 states is a pretty significant victory. But even more important for Trump is the way that it all ended up. It was like a break in the game of pool. The balls ended exactly where Trump needed them where there are still two evenly matched contenders, Rubio and Cruz – neither of which is going to get out. As long as they remain with equal strength roughly below Trump, he wins pluralities in which coming up now are states or with a plurality in the 30s or 40s, it’s winner take all. So at this point, up until now where the vote was split, it was OK to lose states, but now you can’t. The question is what will — will one of them drop out? I think Cruz right now has a stronger claim.”

“He’s won four states,” he continued. “He’s got strength across the board. And then if you play it out theoretically, you could see the Rubio people headed largely into a Cruz camp. With Cruz it’s not that certain that a lot of big number, perhaps even a majority would go to Trump since this is the so-called outsider lane. So if you are planning it that way, you’d say that Rubio should see. The other way to play it is they all stay in and then they deny Trump a majority of the delegates. Then he goes into Cleveland with a plurality but not enough and then you have to do some kind of coalition where the other candidates pool their delegates, win the nomination and decide among themselves who gets it. There is one caveat. If that happens, Trump walks out with 1,000 people walking out behind him and that would be a calamity.”

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