Ahahi, nice arguments, and personally I hope you are right, but like others here I am not quite as sure as you are that Trump has finally reached his ‘high water’ mark and will now receed.
19 April is New York and 26 April is Pennsylvania (also Deleware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island). Let me see how they play out and I’ll get back to you if Trump is done or not.
Some, yes, one suspects.
Because women are empty-headed vessels lacking agency, who wouldn’t dream of having abortions until persuaded by ruthless abortionists into letting the abortionists kill their babies for fun and profit.
At least, that seems to be the pro-life justification for what Fred Clark calls the Standard Answer:
Given today’s date, this would be the perfect time for Trump to say, “I’m suspending my campaign. I was just trolling the Republican Party - I never thought it would get this far. Gimme a break - does anyone think I really want to be President? C’mon, you had to know all along that I was BS’ing you all. I release my delegates to support whoever they choose.”
Or for someone to plant a story saying that he said that.
What they overlook - speaking as a liberal - is that we liberals aren’t sufficiently organized to run a half-decent conspiracy. 
I beg your pardon? Planting false birth announcements in the Honolulu newspapers in the 1960s and getting fake birth certificates into the files has to have been the greatest conspiracy of all time.
Where the Republican voters already know Trump very, very well, and have for years.
Does that help or hurt his chances there, I wonder?
Time was, the Left ran the best conspiracies around, and kept the Right world up at nights, jumping at shadows, creating ten conspiracies for every one the Left actually had going.
Then the Soviets invaded Hungary, the CPUSA collapsed, and the Cold War settled into a whole new phase.
Anyway, the old idea that the Democrats can’t organize an actual party is a leftover from the Carter/Reagan era, when it was true; these days, the Democrats are running a very quiet, organized primary between two candidates who see eye-to-eye on many things and will as a matter of course support the other once it’s all said and done, whereas the GOP has been running a slap-fight in a clown car between a slate of candidates who view each other with barely-disguised contempt at the best of times.
In response to asahi: while it’s always possible that Trump’s support may start to tail off, it’s hard to imagine that it would collapse. He’ll pick up a batch of delegates in the northeastern states that have their primaries on April 19 and 26. I really don’t expect him to get to 1237 by the time the results from California are tallied on June 7, but he’ll be way closer to that number than anyone else. And with Cruz being the only realistic alternative…
Trouble is, when you look past the White House, things don’t look so good. The GOP controls most state governments and legislatures, and has the House as well. And the Dems are going into this election quite underprepared to take advantage of a Dem landslide resulting from a Trump or Cruz candidacy.
It saves money on uniforms.
No question it is true that the possibility of winning the House was to scoff at this time last year. Trump or Cruz as the nominee? Fair perhaps to say that few placed their chips on either of them; a more traditional nominee was expected, if not Bush then maybe Rubio, or Walker, or even Christie.
The conclusion of that article opines that “it’s an inexcusable mistake to not have viable candidates available to run everywhere. National parties need to plan for unforeseen events.”
But resources are limited. Being prepared for improbable events necessitates being less ready to deal with the probable. Spending to have a viable candidate running hard in a relatively longshot district means investing less in winning what you were expecting to be the much much closer ones. Decisions had to be made based on best predictions that could be made probably over two years ago. Not sure spending less on expected close elections to have some long shot chances in races they did not realistically expect would even remotely be in play would have been the most rational choice to make at the time. Assume that collective wisdom had been right - losing the Senate when it was winnable because you spent resources instead on what you realistically “knew” were unwinnable House seats and an unwinnable House, would have been a much worse inexcusable mistake.
Trump will be way closer, but he will be way closer with a lead that was built on races that occurred much earlier in the cycle, and with a field that was more crowded. Cruz will enter the convention with all of the momentum, and it’s entirely possible that voters who supported Trump earlier in the primaries, no longer support him. Remember, the republican party is most interested in who can win in November, not who won back in February and March. It’s a little bit like a baseball season: the team with the best record isn’t always the best team or the team that wins the pennant. Donald Trump was doing well when the field was crowded and when much of the voters’ attention was shifting around and he stood out because he was able to shock people with his words. And the things that he said largely resonated with a solid 35 percent of the republican party.
People are talking about the geography, and I agree that the political geography of this race has been one of the most fascinating story lines, particularly with Trump winning the Solid South. However, Cruz was also managed to turn the tables in a few instances. He won in Maine. He also absolutely crushed Trump in several recent contests in Utah and Idaho. And though Trump won the Solid South, Louisiana was a lot closer than polls predicted it to be. One problem that Cruz had on Super Tuesday and the other multi-state election days is that when he fell behind early, he couldn’t focus on individual races. That problem was further complicated by the fact that there were too many candidates in the race, which only favored Trump’s noise machine. Cruz doesn’t have that problem anymore.
Things have changed dramatically now, and the dynamics of the race now strongly favor Cruz. The race for the nomination is really only now beginning in earnest. Anything can happen, and if there’s a major scandal involving Cruz, then that would obviously change the dynamics in the other direction. But the way it stands now, Cruz looks poised to go on a major winning streak. He might even surprise Trump in some of the places where he’s expected to win.
IIRC, the campaigns in most states submit slates of delegates who then, if their candidate wins, go to Cleveland for the convention. These days delegates are, far more often than not, people who are very gung-ho for their candidate. Given the kind of outsider campaign Trump has been running from the outset, I doubt he has too many old GOP hacks among his delegates who would place the good of the party (define that as you will) above personal, even fetishistic, loyalty to The Donald.
Trump defended New York from Cruz’s insult during one of the debates. Cruz might wind up regretting that statement.
It would be more fun if he said it at the convention. And more fun still if he said it in his acceptance speech.
But if his goal is to destroy the Republican party, he is following the most effective path. Screw up just enough to be below the number of delegates needed. Expect the establishment to “rob” him of the nomination, at least in the eyes of his supporters. Then go through the fall attacking the people who stabbed him in the back.
And then admit it - after Hilary is elected.
If Trump loses, I expect him eventually to claim that he wasn’t really serious. Not because I think it’s true, but because he’s that type of person.
The New York Daily news came then with another classic cover for this election:
“DROP DEAD, TED” “Hey Cruz, Don’t like N.Y. Values? Go back to Canada!”
With the Statue Of Liberty flipping the bird at him.
“Eh, the Presidency? Small potatoes.”