Politics

Ted Cruz Blows Wisconsin Momentum In Big Apple Blowout

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
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Jamie Weinstein makes the valid point that Donald Trump’s New York victory wasn’t a surprise. We all saw it was coming, and—in regards to predicting whether Trump can collect the 1,237 delegates he needs—the results were baked into the cake. States like Indiana and California are much more important, inasmuch as they are the known unknowns.

What I think is remarkable, however, is that Ted Cruz picked up zero delegates in the state, and actually performed much worse than John Kasich. This is not important in terms of mathematically stopping Trump (had Cruz picked up a dozen delegates and come in second, it likely wouldn’t have been dispositive). But it would have cemented Cruz’s position as the man to turn to should we get to Cleveland without a nominee.

Now, I was perhaps the first person to suggest the non-Trump candidates should forget about winning outright, and collude to deprive Trump of the nomination. This would necessarily entail picking your spots and conceding some states to Kasich. But Ted Cruz has consistently rejected this strategy, attempting to instead go head-to-head against Trump.

Fair enough. My strategy was always a short-term one, anyway. At some point—even if that’s on the convention floor in Cleveland—one alternative candidate to Trump must emerge. And a major subplot of this campaign has been that nobody has ever really been able to sustain “owning” the anti-Trump mantle.

Just when you think an alternative is about to emerge, he stumbles. Nobody has been able to consistently string together the series of victories that would provide enough momentum to make them the clear non-Trump protagonist. (Granted, Ted Cruz is in second place in the delegate race, but—on the heels of an impressive win in Wisconsin—New York does nothing to buttress his argument.)

There are plenty of caveats to this, of course. The state is very liberal, and Cruz’s “New York Values” line probably uniquely hurt him in a way that shouldn’t be extrapolated to suggest that he can’t win elsewhere. But the fact that Trump hasn’t been subjected to debates in a long time, seems to have bought on some professional operatives to court delegates, and is clearly now moderating his rhetoric (as much as Trump is capable of that), will only make Cruz’s job harder.

The fundamental problems remains this: You can’t beat somebody with nobody. Back in early March, I argued that Ted Cruz was the best-positioned non-Trump candidate to emerge from a contested convention. For that to happen, he needs to close the deal—not as the Republican front runner—but as the clear and obvious alternative to Donald Trump. Is that too much to ask?

Matt K. Lewis