Both sides, "the Trump and the not Trump" have a "narrow but plausible path" toward getting the 1,237 delegates they need to affect the upcoming Republican National Convention, GOP strategist Karl Rove said Wednesday.
Currently, GOP front-runner is "above the trend line" when it comes to securing the delegates he'll need to clinch the nomination," Rove told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program. "But the question is, does [Ted] Cruz compensate in Indiana by doing better there than was anticipated?"
Cruz, following Trump's landslide win of five states in Tuesday's primaries, is now considered to be mathematically eliminated from reaching the majority number of delegates needed to take the nomination,
reports InfoWars.com, and Rove said now the question remains whether Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich can succeed in blocking Trump from reaching the 1,237 delegates he needs.
And if Trump doesn't win on the first ballot, he'll be in trouble, said Rove.
"On the second ballot he'll bleed," Rove told the program, as there are people now legally committed to him who "not be for him" as the convention balloting progresses into further votes.
But Trump did have a "really good night" on Tuesday, said Rove, and in order to get to the trend line he needs for the majority vote, "he needed to be in the range of 93-98 and he got 105. His opposition got six, one for Cruz and five for Kasich in Rhode Island, so that leaves the count at 950 for Trump, to 1,020 not Trump, but that's the uncommitted delegates in Pennsylvania."
Pennsylvania, whose counties all voted for Trump, has 71 delegates at stake, with 17 for the winner and 54 uncommitted.
"This is the way it's been forever in Pennsylvania for a long time, three per congressional district," Rove said. "But if you dig down, I spent the last couple of days going through the Pennsylvania newspapers, there are about 150 delegates, delegate candidates in 16 congressional districts. There were two districts where only three people filed for each one of them. They're anti-Trump, so there are six people who are not for Trump."
But the remaining delegates said they will vote for the candidate who wins their congressional districts, said Rove.
"Of the remaining, nearly 150, 50 of them told the papers I'm going to vote for whoever wins my congressional district and Trump carried every congressional district."
Rove agreed, though, that if there is a second ballot, it will be between Cruz and Trump and will not include a "white knight" candidate.
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