The outcome is fairly stark. Under the first scenario, Trump wins 1,296 delegates and clinches the nomination on the last day of primary voting.Translation: Kasich takes votes from Cruz, enables Trump to win on the first ballot at convention. If Kasich drops out, most of his voters go to Cruz. Trump goes to the convention with less than the minimum winning number of 1237, and after the first ballot, pledged delegates are free to switch to another candidate, arguably Cruz.
Under the second, Kasich-less scenario, however, Trump has 1,125 delegates, while Cruz collects 899. Given that under the second scenario, Cruz rattles off a string of wins at the end, and given the fact that Rubio’s and Katich’s 300 delegates would probably disproportionately gravitate toward Cruz, this would likely be enough deny Trump the nomination.
Of course, Kasich believes the delegates will turn to him instead of Cruz. If Kasich stays in and Trende's analysis is correct, Trump will win on the first ballot giving them no opportunity to do so.
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On the way to the analysis described above, Trende reports
Trump has, generally speaking, performed best among voters with a high school education or less, with Cruz having his best showing among voters with some college or college degrees, while Rubio and Kasich have performed best among voters with graduate degrees.The Rubio/Kasich wing of the party are mostly those who haven't been personally impacted by the offshoring of jobs and the importation of foreign labor, perhaps they've even benefited therefrom.
