On Tuesday, Donald Trump pulled off a clean sweep of the northeastern states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. His dominant performance — at press time, it appears a majority of Republican voters cast ballots for him in all five states — came on the same day the Republican frontrunner broke 50 percent support in a reputable national poll of Republicans and Republican-leaners for the first time.
Trump’s momentum isn’t slowing. More so than ever before, he’s now the presumptive Republican nominee. The #NeverTrump movement has failed.
Establishment pundits have been powerless to stop him. Mitt Romney couldn’t either. Once-promising GOP candidates such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio were run over by the Trump Train. And the last-minute alliance of remaining contenders Ted Cruz and John Kasich? A total failure almost as soon as it was announced.
Trump has a chance to hit the 1,237 delegates needed to avoid a contested convention. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll come close enough that Rove-ian plans to engineer the nomination of a White Knight candidate probably won’t be palatable.
With Trump now reportedly resisting efforts to tone him down ahead of the general election, establishment conservatives face the choice of getting onboard the often unpredictable Trump Train, trying to talk themselves into likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, or just sitting this election out. Unable to stop Trump, it appears they’ve run out of other options — though some aren’t giving up hope quite yet:
NeverTrump statement tonight: “The path to 1,237 delegates remains narrow for Trump…" pic.twitter.com/XnoP2ycitt
— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) April 27, 2016
In Indiana, the latest polling has Trump ahead by five to eight points ahead of the Hoosier State’s May 3 primary.