Takeaway: What to watch on the election 2016 campaign trail.

Below is a brief excerpt from Potomac Research Group Chief Political Strategist JT Taylor's Morning Bullets sent to institutional clients each morning.

TRUMP TAKING OVER THE REPUBLICAN PARTY:

JT Taylor: An Analysis of Super Tuesday & The Republican Hopefuls - trump deal with it

He's now won in the South, in the West, and the Northeast -- even notching a major 30-point win in MA.  While the Republican establishment weeps, gnashes its teeth, and plots to deny him the nomination, the Clinton campaign is licking its chops at the chance to turn the general election into a referendum on blustering billionaire. There are only two viable scenarios now where Trump is denied the nomination:

  1. The first starts with John Kasich and Marco Rubio joining Ted Cruz in winning their respective home states, and locking up enough delegates to force a contested convention in July.
  2. The other is if the anti-Trump forces unite around a single candidate (again, quickly) and the nomination comes down to a true two-man race.

Neither is likely to happen anytime soon. 

RUH ROH RUBIO:

JT Taylor: An Analysis of Super Tuesday & The Republican Hopefuls - marco rubio 22

Rubio barely dodged an ugly "winless" label with a sole victory in MN, but suffered a severe blow last night after finishing below the 20 percent threshold in AL, TX and VT, missing out on any delegates in those states.

Kasich was the spoiler in VA, where Rubio came within 30,000 votes of beating Trump while Kasich snapped up nearly 100,000 voters in the state, crushing his chances of pulling off an upset.

As if the stakes for FL weren't high enough already -- Rubio's last, best hope is that he gets an endorsement from Jeb Bush before the FL primary, and it helps him to close the gap with Trump in his home state. That is, unless rumors that sitting FL Governor Rick Scott will endorse Trump become reality. Rubio will trudge onward for the same reason the party establishment hasn't totally given in yet -- if surrender means death, then there's no incentive to surrender.  

Amusing that he said Cruz had a bad night after winning three states... 

TED TAKES TEXAS:

JT Taylor: An Analysis of Super Tuesday & The Republican Hopefuls - ted cruz 22

The biggest delegate prize of the race so far went for the home state Senator, along with OK and AK. Cruz's path forward from here looks bleak however -- he doesn't have much to stand on after Trump dominated evangelical voters across the Southern states, handily defeating him in AR, AL, GA, and TN -- which were touted as Cruz's southern firewall.

The math for Cruz (read: we're mostly shifting to northern primaries shortly) simply doesn't add up unless Kasich, Carson, and Rubio drop out and he becomes the party's sole anti-Trump standard bearer.

Again, not likely.