Is it too late to stop Donald Trump

Ever since the tinsel-haired mogul clobbered Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz last Tuesday in Nevada, increasing his delegate tally to 82 — nearly five times Rubio’s and Cruz’s current totals — every pundit, political junkie, and professional Republican in the country has been obsessing over the same question.

Now Super Tuesday is upon us. It is the most consequential day on the GOP primary calendar. Eleven states will vote to commit another 624 delegates — roughly a quarter of this year’s total. And Trump is poised to win more of them than anyone else.

By Wednesday morning, a lot of people will stop asking whether it’s too late to stop Donald Trump. Instead, they’ll think they know the answer: yes.

Don’t buy it — at least not yet. The truth is, Marco Rubio could still stop Trump. Ted Cruz could stop him, too. Even Ohio Gov. John Kasich could (theoretically) do it. 

Blocking the Donald from winning the Republican nomination isn’t impossible. But it will likely require one of his rivals to remain in the race until the GOP convention in July — and to pull off an upset of historic proportions.To understand how strong Trump’s position is — but also why it’s too early to declare him the winner — you have to understand the byzantine delegate math that Republicans will be relying on to select this year’s nominee. The rules are remarkably convoluted. They’re different in almost every state. But in a nominating contest unlike any we’ve seen before, they will be critical going forward.Barring some sort of cataclysmic event that torpedoes the previously unsinkable Trump — a murder charge, perhaps — it appears that the Republican race can end only one of two ways at this point. Either (a) Trump wins the nomination or (b) one of his opponents snatches it away from him in Cleveland.Let’s consider the likelier scenario first: a Trump victory.To be the nominee, a Republican needs to win a majority of delegates; this year’s magic number is 1,237. A scoreboard reads “2016” and “76” for the number of delegates the state of Georgia has as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Ga., Monday. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)You may have heard that all the delegates at stake before March 15 will be awarded proportionally and that many of the delegates at stake after March 15 will be awarded to the candidate who wins each state.