John Kasich Still Has Fewer Delegates than Marco Rubio

RHONA WISE / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

News broke in recent days that John Kasich and Ted Cruz are openly coordinating their campaign strategies in the hope of stopping Donald Trump march to the GOP nomination. Kasich plans to focus his efforts on the primaries in Oregon and New Mexico, while Cruz plans to target Indiana. For Cruz this makes sense. Delegates are awarded proportionally in Oregon and New Mexico, which means that even if the combined Cruz and Kasich vote is lower than Trump's, it won’t cost them too many delegates. By contrast, in Indiana delegates are awarded on a winner-take-all basis at both the congressional district and statewide levels, which means that if Cruz wins Indiana, he could walk away with most of Indiana's delegates.

But why is Kasich still in this race at all? He still has won fewer delegates than Marco Rubio, who dropped out some time ago when it became clear that he no chance of winning the nomination, at least not in this election cycle. Kasich must believe that he still has a chance of winning, apparently assuming that he has a shot if Trump doesn't win on the first ballot at the Republican convention. But surely he is deluding himself. Even if Trump doesn't win on the first ballot, there are others who are more likely to win on the second, third, or fourth ballots with Ted Cruz being the most obvious choice. The old saying is evidently still true: Denial is not only the name of a river in Egypt.