Step by step Trump will drop the extreme positions he took in the primary. Backing off from deporting all undocumented is coming. Same thing with the Muslim ban.
Romney was mocked for the "Etch-A-Sketch" reset, but he never really did pivot and what pivoting he did, he did very late. By the California primary Trump will be well on his way to transitioning to Mr. Moderate. Will general election voters buy it? That remains to be seen.
trump has not yet won the nomination, and many of the votes he has won so far he won through bloodthirstiness. This will demotivate his primary supporters -- and at a time in mid-March when the nominating contest is in full swing and he desperately needs them.
The GOP delegate races passes the halfway point in less than 2 weeks. It enters the fourth quarter in mid April with the last set of delegates dominated by 'blue' states like NY, PA, CT, DE, MD, RI, WA, OR, NM...and last but very much not least, CA. His transition away from the dark side will mostly take place during this period so he can go into the con as a 'uniter'...this will be even more important if it is a contested con as he has to convince delegates he can compete in the general.
The thing that killed Romney was that in the summer of 2008 Team Obama just brutalized him and redefined him as an extreme heartless oligarch. Trump (if he is smart) will come before the con to convince the elites he can win and to counter the coming Clinton ad machine to take him on as an extremist.
