Donald Trump has just experienced his most super of Super Tuesdays. On Tuesday night, he crushed his opponents — the smarmy Cruz and the inept Kasich — by overwhelming margins in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
To date Trump has secured 988 pledged delegates. His magic number now is 249. (He needs 1237 delegates to win the Republican nomination).
Trump is expected to win handily in such upcoming states as New Jersey, West Virginia and California.
The very liberal CNN, clearly no supporter of Trump, believes he will lock up the nomination in California, well before the GOP convention.
In other words, there will be no contested GOP convention, where the establishment Republican forces, in cahoots with the once reviled Cruz, would have used sleazy back room tricks to frustrate the democratic wishes of millions of primary voters.
Most establishment political pundits at the Washington Post, New York Times, the Weekly Standard, CNN and Fox News have been saying ad nauseam that Trump will lose out to Cruz or some other establishment figure in a contested convention.
So what has changed in the last two weeks?
Well, Trump got his mojo back. He killed his opponents last Tuesday in his home state of New York, winning by healthy majorities throughout the state.
Then Trump took on the ridiculous attempt by Cruz and Kasich to gang up against him. Trump publicly lambasted his opponents for “colluding” together, a word that implies illegality. This was a typically over the top Trumpian attack, but effective nonetheless.
Trump also pointed out that such coalitions are terrible ideas both politically and optically. For liberal-oriented Kasich to jump in bed with extremely right wing Cruz, Trump insisted, demonstrates that neither man has any principles.
When reporters questioned Kasich about the coalition, Kasich tried lamely to pass off this major political development as “no big deal,” and just a way to conserve his resources.
Say what? By telling his liberal supporters in Indiana and in Los Angeles to support the viciously right wing Cruz? Has Kasich gone completely nuts?
Then Kasich backtracked and encouraged his supporters to vote for him in Indiana after all. That will split the anti-Trump vote and definitely ensure a Trump victory in the Hoosier state.
Months ago, my political instincts suggested Trump would take the GOP primaries. Now the hard and cold numbers support this view.
Mitch Wolfe: The Playful Contrarian 