Dan Balz: “The window for stopping Donald Trump closed almost completely Tuesday night, leaving the demoralized anti-Trump forces with two weeks and no agreed-upon strategy for denying the New York billionaire the Republican presidential nomination.”
Amy Walter: “The only silver lining, if there is any, for those who don’t want to see Trump as the nominee is that Trump has not technically ‘sewed up’ the nomination. The March 15 winner-take-all states will ultimately decide if Trump wins the nomination outright or if the race remains inevitably splintered and leads to a contested convention. However, a non-Trump candidate would need to win Ohio and Florida, which seems unlikely from where we sit now.”
Nate Cohn: “If Mr. Trump isn’t defeated on that date, he will be in a very strong position to amass a majority of delegates by the end of the primary season. If Mr. Trump had a big day on March 15 and then won by even a little afterward, say by a margin as small as three percentage points, he would probably have enough delagates to avoid a contested convention.”
Mike Allen: “Talk of a brokered convention seems nuts: Imagine the blowback from Trump and his followers if they were denied by a bunch of stuffy rich white dudes behind closed doors.”