North Carolina’s 72 delegates are awarded proportionally, which, in a four-person race, means that Trump should walk away with somewhere between 18 and 25. Illinois awards 69 delegates total, including 15 to the statewide winner and 3 to the winner of each of its 18 congressional districts, again making it likely that Trump (who led a Chicago Tribune poll from earlier this month by 10 points) walks away with a sizable haul. And Missouri, an open primary that awards 5 delegates to the winner in each of its eight congressional districts, plus another 12 to the statewide winner, also seems certain to add a healthy chunk to Trump’s total. (If any candidate hits 50 percent statewide, he wins all 52 of Missouri’s delegates.)

The bottom line: If Trump carries both Florida and Ohio, and performs to expectations in the other three states, he’ll emerge from March 15 with at least 700 delegates and perhaps 750 or more. In a two-man race against Cruz, Trump would then need to win somewhere in the ballpark of 45 percent of all remaining delegates to reach 1,237, a highly attainable goal given the hospitable map and the number of proportional contests ahead.

All of which explains why Cruz, even if he won’t admit it publicly, needs either Kasich or Rubio to win their home state Tuesday — not just because it would deprive Trump of a large winner-take-all prize in the short term, but because it’s the only way that a second opponent can stay in the race and further divide the delegate pie, preventing Trump from reaching 1,237. Of course, a three-way race would eliminate whatever chance Cruz has of reaching 1,237 himself, but the schedule of states ahead makes that outcome virtually impossible anyway.

An important caveat: Recent exit polling (and some public and internal polling) shows Cruz competitive with and sometimes ahead of Trump head to head. But while the Texas senator would surely consolidate plenty of anti-Trump voters, it’s likely that a considerable portion of them wouldn’t turn out to support him, either — especially in many of the moderate, more secular states ahead.