But Rubio isn’t going after Trump, his chief competitor. He’s going after Ted Cruz, knocking the Texas senator for running a “dishonest campaign.” Likewise, Cruz clearly sees Rubio as his chief competitor, attacking his Florida colleague from the right on immigration and portraying him as a devoted ally of President Obama. All of this despite the fact that neither Cruz nor Rubio is each other’s chief threat. Trump is. Trump prevents Cruz from consolidating conservative and disaffected voters while he also keeps Rubio from consolidating more moderate Republicans.
In other words, as long as Rubio and Cruz are skirmishing against each other—dividing any potential anti-Trump coalition—the structure of the primary and the calendar of the remaining contests favor Trump. To that point, the multistate primaries of Super Tuesday next week are centered in the South, where Trump could dominate the field on the strength of his support from white evangelicals and working-class Republicans.
For Cruz in particular, South Carolina made it clear that he has to go after Trump. But he refuses. At a campaign appearance at the Durango Hills Community Center in Las Vegas on Monday, Cruz took a small swipe at Trump—mocking the real estate mogul’s claim that he would “make America great again” by noting the emptiness of the promise—but quickly pivoted back to touting his conservative bona fides.
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