Republican Ides of March Tuesday results thread (N. Marianas start at 4:30am ET)

[PeteB]

Great news for Kasich.  Assuming the polls were accurate, he's probably won this.

Definitely a win for Kasich in OH - I don't think it will even be close. Now I am interested what happens in IL?

[PeteB]

Kasich, a popular and effective sitting governor, was never going to lose his home state.  I never doubted it for a moment.

Yes but it is telling that Trump threw his all into OH - this will be a big loss for him!

[PeteB]

Trump is leading in Ohio, Kasich in trouble.

this is why I love Atlas!

[PeteB]

STOP POSTING ABOUT A SINGLE PRECINCT!

You're so retarded.  It's clear who's going to win from even one precinct's returns.

Okay, so you're guaranteeing Trump will win OH. Good luck with that.

I will take a bet that Kasich will win by 7% FL more!

[PeteB]

This speech is beautiful.  

Agreed - I always thought Rubio was a little inexperienced but the speech should make him proud!

[PeteB]

Most Pro-Cruz counties are already reporting most of their votes in NC..

No- all three are Unsurprisingly Bad for Trump. the Ides of March are the beginning of the end of Trump.

He will lose OH and MO and will bleed delegates to Cruz in NC and IL and to Kasich in IL!

[PeteB]

With 17% of votes in IL:

Trump 41%
Kasich 23.8%
Cruz 22.7%

[PeteB]

For the last 3 month, all Kasich has talked about was winning Ohio. What's he going to talk about after today?

He is doing well in IL and will win delegates there. If I can make an early bet, assuming Romney endorses him, Kasich will take UT on the 22nd!

[PeteB]

It looks like Kasich's margin in Ohio will only continue to improve.  Most of the vote still out is in the population centers, including Columbus (aka Kasich's congressional stomping grounds) which he's winning by over 40% with only 12% of the precincts reporting.  

Mark my words - this has to burn Trump. From tomorrow every moderate GOP resource is going to Kasich!

[PeteB]

DAVID WASSERMAN 11:20 PM
Here’s my gut takeaway from tonight’s primaries: It’s more difficult to see how Trump DOESN’T get to 1,237 delegates from here. He’s beating Cruz in red states, and he’s likely to beat Kasich in future blue states. Most of the delegates at stake from here on out will come from winner-take-all states. Whether #NeverTrump forces realize it or not, they are losing.

Ah, but here is the thing with Wasserman’s delegate targets:

The delegate targets that 538 uses for each state are basically assuming a static 4-man race.  They’re asking “Given where this candidate tends to run strong, how well would they have to be doing nationally in order to end up at 1237?  And then once we’ve figured that out, how would that national performance trickle down into delegate performances in individual states?”

But that’s assuming a static race.  Now that Rubio has dropped out, you have a brand new set of voters freed up, and the polling suggests that Rubio supporters mostly dislike Trump, and are more likely to swing to Cruz or Kasich.  Maybe that won’t actually happen, but if it does, then Cruz and/or Kasich could start to become competitive in places where they haven’t been competitive so far.  And if that doesn’t happen for Kasich, then Kasich may well drop out himself, freeing up yet more voters, which could split any number of ways between Cruz and Trump.

In any case, two and a half plus months to go before California, so there’s plenty of time for more twists and turns in the race.  Whether Trump makes it to 1237 or not is still very much uncertain.

Thank you for nicely stating the obvious.  The race has changed dramatically and anyone who is using past month's data and "pundit rationale", to predict the future, will be very surprised.  In addition to what you stated, there will also be a change in tone and discourse in the race.  With only Kasich and Cruz left, this will become a more serious race and any additional Trump theatrics will start backfiring on him.  In fact, Trump's utter lack of knowledge of the issues will become glaringly obvious.  That is why Trump is declining any more debates.

We'll see if the frontrunner can actually prove his Wharton MBA is worth something, and start coming up with solutions to problems.  However, I wouldn't necessarily assume that Trump now automatically wins any future states, even those where he was the heavy favorite until yesterday!