As previously mentioned, in order to try and dilute the overwhelming victories being achieved by candidate Donald J Trump the media continues to sell a specific narrative that Trump has a ceiling of support. The premise is that this “ceiling” can block Trump from running the table in state primary elections.

According to the punditry and professional political class, if the current field shrinks down, the non-Trump vote (Rubio or Cruz) will grow larger than Donald Trump’s vote. Of course this ridiculous assertion assumes that any individual candidate’s support will go monolithically 100% to the next candidate.

As an example they say: if Carson drops out, 100% his support would go to Ted Cruz. Or, if John Kasich drops out, 100% of his support would go to Marco Rubio.

However, a recent statistical analysis of this exact question has been conducted (yesterday) by Elon University polling in North Carolina (pdf here), and the factual results are entirely different.

As you can see from this graphic if Ben Carson drops out 39% of his supporters go to Donald Trump. Also if John Kasich drops out 29% of his supporters go to Donald Trump:

What this graphic is showing. If they drop out:

31% of Jeb Bush support goes to Donald Trump

39% of Ben Carson support goes to Donald Trump

43% of Ted Cruz support goes to Donald Trump

29% of John Kasich support goes to Donald Trump

29% of Marco Rubio’s support goes to Donald Trump

♦ Marco Rubio benefits the most from Bush dropping out picking up 33% of his support.

♦ Donald Trump benefits the most from Carson dropping out gaining 39% of his support. (However, Cruz gets 27% and Rubio 25% of it)

♦ Donald Trump benefits the most from Ted Cruz Dropping out gaining 43% of his supporters. (Marco Rubio gets 36% of it)

♦ Marco Rubio benefits the most from John Kasich dropping out by getting 42% of his supporters.

♦ Ted Cruz benefits the most from Marco Rubio dropping out gaining 46% of his supporters. (However, Trump still picks up 29%)

SUMMARY – There is no statistical analysis of this empirical data where the frontrunner, Donald Trump, doesn’t continue leading even if the field shrinks. Math is math; and the math, along with the factual data, doesn’t support the narrative.