United against Trump

Cruz and Kasich have officially embraced the contested convention strategy, announcing today that they are making a coordinated effort to deny Trump in three upcoming states, Kasich will cease campaigning in Indiana in favor of Cruz, who will do likewise here in Oregon as well as New Mexico.

This would have been a good strategy three months ago, but now it reeks of a desperate last stand, as Trump has already pointed out repeatedly on Twitter, I hate the guy but he is totally right here. In a race as polarized as this one, with massive complaints on both sides about the parties ignoring the will of the voters, this move, with the blatant and unapologetic coordination is... unlikely to work in my opinion. Trump currently holds a six point lead or so in Indiana, but polling has been sparse to say the least and he often underperforms a bit, Indiana demographically is favorable to Cruz as well, having a large population of crazed zealots. The problem is, like I said, that a lot of Cruz's support is also pissed at establishment politics and feel that their voice is largely ignored, which it is, at least on the national level, and for good reason because they are insane, however Cruz blatantly attempting to manipulate the system that has kept them down for so long I don't think will endear him to them.

The gamble Cruz is making, whether he realizes it or not, is on if him being the only not Trump will help him more than him being an obvious politician will hurt him, now I don't expect his base to go to Trump, but they are entirely capable of staying home and I am not convinced they will turn out for him after this, I want them to because a contested convention is the best possible result of this election and watching the party immolate itself, perhaps literally, will be the best entertainment since Mad Max came out. But I don't really think he made the right play here.

As to the other two states well, I am pretty sure Oregon was gonna go for Trump no matter what, our conservatives are generally pretty strongly along the racist libertarian type that seem to go for Trump pretty reliably, I don't think an uninspiring bog standard Republican like Kasich can compete with that no matter how little opposition he has.
No idea about New Mexico, the Kasich campaign thinks demographically it is like the NE states that he has been performing well in, but I have two problems with that, one is that no, no it really isn't, and two, coming in a distant second or a close third isn't actually polling well no matter how you spin it.

I have no idea why Kasich remains in the race, I think he wants to leverage his support for a VP nod, but he has to know that a dozen delegates are not really going to be a high priority, certainly not in exchange for the Vice Presidency, and also, who really thinks Kasich will deliver anything other than maybe Ohio in the general election? If he was serious about opposing Trump and supporting his party he should have dropped months ago, but if anyone was serious about doing that they would have lined up behind JEB! or Rubio rather than hounding them out of the race because despite the (many) problems those two had, they were probably the only ones who stood a chance at the general, especially compared with the Theocrat and the orange fascist. The others at least had some level of charisma despite their obvious incompetence and unpreparedness.