For all the jostling and jockeying taking place in South Carolina ahead of this weekend’s Republican primary, little of it will be decisive.
If anything, the outcome Saturday night only stands to muddy an already messy contest to lead a deeply fractured Republican Party. Losers may not be forced to leave the race, and the still-uncertain winner will leave the state with nothing guaranteed.
The growing consensus among many senior Republicans is that there are three likely outcomes facing Republicans. Donald Trump could win enough delegates to be the nominee. Ted Cruz could do the same. Or no candidate emerges from the final primaries on June 7 with the required 1,237 delegates to win when the intra-party convention starts in Cleveland.
That means the remaining candidates with a claim to party establishment backing—Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—see their chances for winning the nomination before the July convention dwindling. National and early-state polls have shown Trump and Cruz polling with a combined share of more than half of party voters. The also-rans do not have a clear path, barring a sudden collapse in support for Trump or Cruz, to cobble together sufficient support to put up a roadblock to the outsiders’ aggressions, even if two of the candidates agreed to drop out to unite behind the third.
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