…Trump fell well short of claiming a majority of the delegates allocated on Super Tuesday; by comparison, Mitt Romney did so by a healthy margin in 2012. Trump also lagged slightly behind Romney's performance in terms of his popular vote victory percentage. (Same goes for McCain in 2008). If Trump's rivals continue bagging chunks of available delegates over the next few weeks, and manage to win several big prizes (Ohio, Florida, etc.) when the calendar moves into the winner-take-all zone on March 15, Trump may be deprived of the 1,237 delegates he needs to stave off a contested convention. Nevertheless, Trump undoubtedly remains the strong frontrunner in this race, and will be difficult to beat at this rate. His decision to hold a press conference, rather than a celebratory speech, was strategic and worked well. ”
Snippets from the Center
Politico
“As they dig in against his candidacy, they are girding for a civil war not, they insist, in order to cling to power over the party but to save the ideas and principles that have always held it together.
It is a war the GOP as we know it may not survive, “a big and strong fight going on about the future of the Republican Party as intense as we’ve ever seen,” said Pete Wehner, a veteran of the George W. Bush White House who has savaged Trump of late. “A Trump victory would be catastrophic to the Republican Party and a terrible danger to the republic itself. If he wins the presidency, you may see the efforts to form a new party.”