# Does Rubio’s departure help Cruz? Trump? Affect the convention's end game? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 16, 2016, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-rubio-s-departure-help-cruz-trump-affect-the-conventions-end-game/749131 "2016-03-16T02:26:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tigers2B1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-rubio-s-departure-help-cruz-trump-affect-the-conventions-end-game/749131/21 "2016-03-16T15:17:03Z")
> [@galen\_ubal](#): > > [From 538’s coverage of the March 15 primaries](http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/march-15-primaries-ohio-florida-results-presidential-election-2016/). It’s part way down (now), so I’ll quote the entire relevant passage. This is going to be interesting. With Trump’s historically huge negatives, it seems you’re either on the Trump Train now or you’re trying to derail it. So, I’m having a hard time seeing free delegates who had backed Bush, Rubio or most of the others - having Trump has their #2. Add these crazy negatives, even within his own party, to the general election polls, which show Trump getting curb stomped by Clinton and with Cruz almost even, I just don’t see how Trump comes out of a contested convention with the nomination. So, IMO, if Trump gets one less delegate than he needs to win the nomination on the first vote - I think we’ll see someone not named Trump has the guy. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-rubio-s-departure-help-cruz-trump-affect-the-conventions-end-game/749131/22 "2016-03-16T16:01:42Z")
Trump’s operation seems politically amateurish. Does he have the smoke-filled room chops to negotiate a brokered convention? I think if he doesn’t get it on the first round, he’s toast. No idea who does, though. For the first time in 40 years I may actually watch the TV coverage of the convention. ---
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-rubio-s-departure-help-cruz-trump-affect-the-conventions-end-game/749131/23 "2016-03-16T16:04:31Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Rubio’s campaign manager said that conservatives need to unite around Cruz. Dammit. Yeah, just like all those Ohioans did Tuesday night! Oops! Quoted the wrong post. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-rubio-s-departure-help-cruz-trump-affect-the-conventions-end-game/749131/24 "2016-03-16T16:08:59Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Trump’s operation seems politically amateurish. Does he have the smoke-filled room chops to negotiate a brokered convention? I think if he doesn’t get it on the first round, he’s toast. > > No idea who does, though. For the first time in 40 years I may actually watch the TV coverage of the convention. He’s got money for lawyers though. The best lawyers, terrific lawyers. Lawyers who will shoot first and ask questions later, believe me. You have no idea. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-rubio-s-departure-help-cruz-trump-affect-the-conventions-end-game/749131/25 "2016-03-16T16:17:20Z")
To address the OP’s main question: I just don’t see Rubio’s delegates or his supporters among the voting public making a difference. As posted earlier, the delegate situation is far from simple. For future primary voters, we haven’t seen anyone drop out yet where their supporters formed a solid bloc in moving to someone else and I don’t think we’ll see it here either. Each of the remaining three will pick up a couple extra points. Maybe Cruz gets four points and Trump only two, but that’s not game-changing. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The party might be better served by having Trump lose badly to Clinton, rather than Kasich perhaps a bit less badly. It might help expose and delegitimize the nativism that now rules them, while a loss by another Sane would only result in 2020 looking even more trainwreckish for them than 2016. > > [/Concern] I pretty sure that branch of the party is immune to reality. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-rubio-s-departure-help-cruz-trump-affect-the-conventions-end-game/749131/26 "2016-03-18T09:56:20Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Still futilely grasping at that Kasich straw? The only way that that’d happen is some crazy convention trickery. That would result in a nasty nasty schism. All so someone who can’t even come in 3rd in the party primary and can only win his own state to be offered up as a sacrificial lamb to Mrs. Clinton? What would be the point? Kasich is probably going to do better in the North & Midwest than a Southern Baptist, Texas oil industry guy like Rafael ‘Ted’ Cruz. Also Cruz is hated by his fellow senators to an astonishing degree. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-rubio-s-departure-help-cruz-trump-affect-the-conventions-end-game/749131.md?page=1)