Ted Cruz faces a difficult path to nomination | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Ted Cruz has won four primary states, displayed a formidable ground game that churns out loyal voters and turned in a lauded debate performance in which he pierced a few holes in the record of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.

That’s left him and supporters convinced he’s the only Republican capable of unifying the party and defeating Trump. But to do so, he’ll need to reassemble his winning Texas coalition of tea party conservatives and evangelicals while highlighting Trump’s negatives.

“He has demonstrated that his is the campaign that can beat Donald Trump and win the general election against Hillary Clinton,” Tea Party Patriots president and co-founder Jenny Beth Martin said to a gathering of prominent conservatives on Friday, urging them to not to be fooled by Trump.

But if Cruz still has a path to the Republican nomination, it’s an exceedingly narrow one.

Cruz’s best chance to seize the narrative with a quick breakout is likely to be in caucus states, where Republican activists are more prominent and often control the proceedings.

Evangelical Christian voters, who boosted Cruz to victory in Iowa, make up at least half of the electorate in Kansas and Kentucky, which vote Saturday, said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

Maine also has a caucus Saturday, but Trump has the support of its governor, Paul LePage, and is expected to do well there.

After that, Cruz would need to break through in an unexpected way, because there are only two big caucuses left -- Hawaii on March 8 and Utah on March 22.

After Utah, all of the contests are primaries and only Indiana on May 3, along with Nebraska and West Virginia a week later, are likely to be Cruz-friendly states.

“It doesn’t look good for Cruz,” said University of Texas at Austin presidential expert Bruce Buchanan. He noted the terrain is rocky: The next winner-take-all primary states include far fewer of the evangelical voters that have been staples of Cruz victories.

The largest remaining delegate prize, Florida, is Sen. Marco Rubio’s home state, but Trump is leading in the polls there. A Rubio loss in Florida is likely to end his bid, though he’s pledged to continue. And Ohio Gov. John Kasich is still in the race, gunning for a victory in his delegate-rich home state.

“Cruz’s best chance might be for Trump to self-destruct in some fashion,” Buchanan said. “But even if he does, Rubio and Kasich – who would have greater appeal to more moderate Republicans – figure to inherit more delegates than Cruz.”

Cruz has just two weeks to make his case, said Brandon Rottinghaus, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston.

“Cruz isn’t the obvious choice as the Trump alternative but at this point he is the best choice,” he said. But, Rottinghaus added, it’s a steep climb: Cruz would need to make a decent showing in both Ohio and Florida, and then win in Missouri on March 15 “to make any kind of stand.”

Anti-Trump forces within the Republican Party are marshaling, prompting talk of taking the fight for the nomination into a brokered convention in July. But Trump’s continued strength at the ballot box reduces daily the chances the party will want its nominee selected by power brokers.

“This is an outsider year,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., a firebrand conservative who has not endorsed any of the candidates running for president, but whose name is being bandied about as a possible vice presidential running mate. “It’s time for those in the reaches of the Republican Party to listen to the voters.”

Even if there were a brokered convention, Cruz is unlikely to wield much leverage with the Republican Party power brokers, who mostly despise him.

“I don’t like his personality – not at all,” said John Feehery, a former top GOP congressional staffer who is now a D.C.-based consultant and blogger. He said he’s prepared for Trump to secure the nomination.

But others in the party say they may rally around Cruz, by default.

“Ted Cruz is not my favorite by any means,” one-time Republican rival Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a CBS interview after Super Tuesday. “But we may be in a position where we have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald Trump.”

“Divided opinion and ambivalence as to which of these guys would be worse – Trump or Cruz – tells you all you need to know,” said Cal Jillson, professor of political science at Southern Methodist University. He believes Cruz has an argument for emerging as the Trump alternative: He was the only candidate other than Trump to win multiple states on Super Tuesday, and he did defeat Trump convincingly in several states.

But Cruz doesn’t benefit from a Republican Party in disarray. The establishment “liked Rubio and he underperformed again,” Jillson said. And Cruz’s history of antagonizing the GOP will remain a factor.

David Lightman of the McClatchy Washington bureau contributed to this report.