Step right up, folks, to the Ted Cruz-John Kasich game. The aim is to push out the candidate who could win in November in favor of the one who can't.
Everything else has failed to stop Donald Trump, but the Republicans' strategy of putting their few remaining eggs in Senator Cruz's basket and insulting Governor Kasich back to the Ohio statehouse is delusional — as is their assertion that a vote for Kasich is a vote for Trump...
...Although Kasich is being hammered for continuing to exist, he has a good case for staying in: He governs Ohio, which no Republican has won the White House without, was re-elected there with record numbers, and has high approval ratings for turning the deficit into a surplus and bringing 400,000 jobs to the state. He's pro-life and a fiscal conservative. He over-hugs but has kept out of the mud pit. He wins in every matchup with Clinton, while Trump and Cruz lose by double digits...
...And in Ohio, with Cruz and Rubio still in, Kasich won decisively, keeping 66 delegates from Trump. Looking forward to northeastern states, Cruz is not going to win moderate conservatives, see the polls above. In Pennsylvania, a Franklin and Marshall survey showed Kasich statistically even with Trump, and Cruz a distant third. To stop Trump, Cruz has to stay out.
What Republicans want — other than the 30 percent voting for Trump — is not a Cruz win but a brokered convention. There are fewer winner-take-all states left and there's no saying Cruz could win those in a one-on-one matchup against Trump. In moderate states coming up —and where delegates are allocated — to deny Trump his 1,237 delegates, the party has to reverse its mantra: A vote for Cruz is a vote for Trump.
John Kasich, Kasich Campaign Press Release - Bloomberg View: Cruz, Not Kasich, Is the Trump Enabler Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/316947