By Craig Andresen Right Side Patriots http://www.americanpbn.com/

Ted Cruz won two states in the March 5th showdowns. Donald Trump won two states in the March 5th showdowns. Trump’s camp is happy to say they won as many states last Saturday as did Cruz but that doesn’t really tell the whole story, does it?

Cruz won 68 delegates last Saturday. Trump only won 53 delegates that night and that’s a lot more telling than the two to two tie isn’t it?

But even that doesn’t tell the full story.

Trump under-performed in Louisiana. In polls leading up to that state’s primary, Trump held a double digit lead. It was supposed to be an easy win for Trump and while he did win that state…he only beat Cruz by less than four points. It was close. It was a whole lot closer than Trump wanted it to be and a whole lot closer than Trump thought it would be.

Trump also won Kentucky, but in polls there, before the March 5th caucus, Trump also enjoyed a double digit lead over Ted Cruz by a margin of 35-15 according to RealClear Politics. That was a 20 point lead but on caucus night, Trump barely managed to win by 35.9 to Cruz’s 31.6…a difference of only 4.3 percent.

Interesting, but there’s more to be told before we can accurately see the big picture here.

Ted Cruz won in Maine by a spread of 46-33 and in Kansas by a spread of 48-23 percent so what does this tell us regarding the March 5th showdowns? It tells us that where Trump won…he just barely won but where Cruz won…he obliterated Trump.

By the end of the night…according to one accounting of delegates from what has been dubbed as Super Saturday…Cruz added 69 delegates to his count while Trump only added 53 to his….according to another total…it was Cruz 70 to Trump’s 61. Either way, Cruz won the night.

When it comes to winning the nomination, it’s all about the delegate count and even if you add in Marco Rubio’s either 18 delegates from one total from Saturday or 14 from the other…the total so far has Trump in first, Cruz gaining in second and Rubio a distant third, but wait…there’s more to this end of the story too…

Mainstream media paid no attention whatsoever to what happened on Sunday regarding delegates and that is what should have been the biggest primary news of the weekend.

Marco Rubio won in Puerto Rico. While Puerto Rico doesn’t have a say when it comes to the general election, they do have a say in delegates. There were 23 delegates up for grabs in Puerto Rico on Sunday and Marco Rubio picked up all of them.

So, where does the delegate count stand officially? Trump with 384, Cruz with 300 and Rubio at 151 which means there is no clear presumptive GOP nominee at this point in the tally. While many, including Cruz and Trump calling for Rubio to drop out now…that would be folly on Rubio’s part as March 15th is looming large.

In Florida, there are 99 delegates up for grabs and it’s winner take all. Were Rubio to collect Florida’s delegates…he’s right back in this race. There are four super-PACs are coming together there, backing Rubio against Trump and Rubio is narrowing the gap just one week away from his make it or break it primary.

Ohio, like Florida is also a winner take all state and should John Kasich, with polls showing him closing in on Trump, win there, taking all 66 delegates…it’s still a three man race for the nomination.

But what if Rubio fails to win in his home state of Florida? Does that mean it’s over and Trump will get the nomination?

No, it doesn’t mean that at all.

In fact, according to RedState, even if Trump wins both Florida and Ohio, along with Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey…all being winner take all states…he could still come up short of the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

While all eyes, at least for now, are on Florida and Ohio, where they should be is on California which has 172 winner take all delegates, but in this, an extraordinarily wild campaign…there are some key factors regarding this scenario.

If Rubio wins in Florida…he stays in the race no doubt about it. If he loses Florida…he does need to bow out so that Cruz can take on Trump one to one and California becomes the wildcard if Rubio wins in Florida. Splitting the vote between Rubio and Cruz in that state would hand it to Trump, however, should Rubio lose in Florida, drop out and leave California ripe for the Cruz picking…it all changes and California’s primary isn’t until June 7th.

If Trump loses to Cruz in California, assuming he wins along the eastern seaboard and picks up proportional delegates elsewhere, according to RedState he still comes up short at 1,054 delegates of the 1,237 needed to avoid a brokered convention.

At this point, the nomination becomes a matter of momentum and if we look back to Super Saturday, we can clearly see a momentum shift.

Going in to last Saturday’s primaries and caucuses, Trump was heavily favored to win it all but the outcome was far different than polling projections. In fact, in Louisiana, Trump was a 20 point favorite just one week ahead of that caucus, but Cruz all but erased that margin in just 7 days.

In Kentucky, Trump was up by nearly 20 points leading into the vote and Cruz all but erased that too.

In Kansas, just one day ahead of the voting there, Trump was a 6 point favorite going in but Cruz obliterated him by the end of the day 49.8% to Trump’s 24.7%.

In Maine…where that state’s Governor, Paul LaPage as well as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie aggressively campaigned for Donald Trump…Cruz trumped Donald and his minions 45.9% to 32.6% but there’s something else interesting regarding Louisiana.

Last Friday, the Day before Super Saturday, in my article, “The Fraud Behind the Curtain” I stated that…

“Low information voters generally make their decisions, regarding their candidate of choice, early…they dig in and they ignore each and every fact that doesn’t fit with their early, knee-jerk decision. It’s their pride over policy. It’s their stand over real substance. It’s their emotions over the facts,” and that is exactly what happened the very next day.

In early voting…Trump won 46.7% to Cruz’s 22.9% but in voting on Saturday…Cruz edged out Trump 40.9% to 40.5%.

It’s momentum and it’s swinging towards Ted Cruz and perhaps even Rubio, but what caused the momentum to shift so dramatically?

Three things happened in the week leading up to the Super Saturday votes…

First…Mitt Romney spoke.

Much to the consternation of Trump’s low information followers, Mitt Romney’s 16 minute speech caught the attention of voters who had yet to make their final decision heading into last Saturday’s primaries and caucuses and put the emphasis directly on policy as well on Trump’s lack of substance and his vulgarities.

Second, hours after Romney’s speech, there was the brilliant tag-team debate strategy between Cruz and Rubio that left Trump melting down on the stage and Cruz benefited the most from that as he kept to policy while Rubio applied the pressure. Trump, for all his demeaning of Rubio, couldn’t take the pressure Rubio applied and neither could Trump come close to countering the clearly stated policy positions stated by Cruz.

And third…Trump happened.

Trump opened the debate by interjecting the size of his personal parts without any prompting by Rubio thus highlighting that part of Romney’s speech and he continued to demean Rubio and Cruz throughout the debate shining the light of Romney’s truth regarding the fact that Trump “lacks the temperament to be president. After all, this is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter, who attributed a reporter’s questions to her menstrual cycle, who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance, who bragged about his marital affairs, and who laces his public speeches with vulgarity.”

Trump’s followers took to social media both before and after Romney’s speech to try and belittle Romney, but all they, and for that matter, Trump himself managed to do, was prove that Romney was spot-on with his assessments of Trump and voters, those who had yet to make up their minds, took note during that Thursday night debate.

Rubio’s momentum gain, while maybe not as visible as that of Cruz, is there nonetheless. In fact, early voting in Florida shows Rubio with a significant lead of nearly 25 points while polls, of those who have not yet voted…about 4 in 5 in the state of Florida, shows Trump with about an 8 point lead but that too seems to be closing.

Cruz and Rubio must continue to expose Trump for what he is, from a standpoint of temperament as well as his total lack of policy substance as they head into the March 15th primaries and they’ll have yet another opportunity to do so in a March 10th debate, in Miami…Rubio’s turf… on CNN. It they continue to work together, they can significantly expose Trump as anything but a Conservative.

If Rubio can win in Florida, with seniors and late deciders, the targets of his heavy ad campaign there, and Kasich can win in Ohio, the Trump effect will be effectively halted and everything else, save the eastern seaboard, is ripe for the picking thus nullifying a Trump nomination. If Rubio loses Florida, he should at least stay in until after the final GOP debate on March 21st and then bow out throwing his support to Ted Cruz.

Cruz needs to start taking a national, general election approach to his campaign trying to swing undecided voters, and even Rubio or Kasich voters his way by highlighting Trump’s narcissism, lack of policy substance and abhorrent demeanor so as to clear a path to an uncontested convention this summer.

One big step in that direction for Cruz will be the announcements, this coming weekend…ahead of the Florida and Ohio primaries…of either four or five U.S. senate endorsements. While Rubio already has endorsements from his colleagues, some of the undecided Senators are now starting to believe that Rubio’s only shot at the nomination comes via a brokered convention while Cruz has, perhaps, a more direct route.

There are two bottom lines in all of this…

First, that right now, neither Cruz nor Rubio has a clear path to the nomination although Cruz is currently in a better position, delegate totals and momentum wise than is Rubio.

The second is that Trump doesn’t have anywhere near a clear path to the nomination regardless of the outcome of next Tuesday’s primaries and that is the best bottom line for the future of the Republic.