Just over a month ago, after Trump’s big win in Nevada and after Cruz’s SEC state southern strategy fell short amidst the Trump tidal wave across the south, it looked like Trump had the momentum to prevail against a fractured field. Trump thought it was over, and was confident enough to hold unifying post-primary press conference events like a President. As more March contests took place however, the persistent overperformance of Cruz (in places like Kansas, Wyoming and Maine) and underperformance of Rubio led finally to Rubio’s withdrawal after Florida. Despite Kasich staying in, the race winnowed and clarified to the point where Cruz was finally given his chance to go toe to toe with Trump.

And what happened? While Trump won in Arizona, in part due to early votes in the Arizona primary and a favorable state for his immigration message, since then it’s been Cruz domination:

Cruz won Utah with 69% of the vote, sweeping all of Utah’s 40 delegates.

Cruz won delegates out of Louisiana that were available.

Cruz then won the North Dakota delegate race, taking 18 out of 25 delegates. Trump got only 1 publicly supporting delegate.

Cruz won in Wisconsin, getting close to 50% of the vote and winning 36 out of the 42 delegates by winning most Congressional districts, with just 6 delegates for Trump.

Cruz won the Colorado delegate selection process, winning all of the delegate races, either with Cruz bound delegates or Cruz-supporting unbound delegates, a total of 34 delegates.

Cruz has been winning the ‘other’ nomination race, the race for actual delegates, even when bound to Trump. In places like Georgia, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and many other states. For example, this weekend in Iowa, a CD is sending #CruzCrew delegates to Iowa.

@CCPAC4Cruz 5m5 minutes ago Sweep for #CruzCrew delegates in #IA02 #OnToCleveland

The Colorado win now gives Cruz the 8th states he needs to meet the Rule 40 (b) requirement, adding CO to TX, ME, KS, ID, ND, UT and WI. More importantly, though, from Utah until now Cruz has won the delegate race: 128 delegates for Cruz, 7 delegates for Trump, 0 delegates for Kasich. Cruz is crushing it. The race has become a race for delegate accumulation, and by shutting Trump down in Utah, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Colorado, Cruz has shifted the terrain enough to make it much harder for Trump to get to 1237. Should Cruz keep Trump under 50% in New York, and force a split of New York’s delegates, and have Kasich and Cruz both be over 20%, the split in delegates may be something like: 54 Trump, 11 Kasich, 30 Cruz. Then Trump’s hill will become steep to the point of impossible.

As of right now, The Greenpapers has soft pledged total at:

758 Trump

533 Cruz

732 available (via primaries) to be bound

77 unpledged available

Trump needs 65% of the remaining delegates to get to 1237. Should Trump get 50% of the remaining, above the 45% he’s gotten so far, Trump would have 1120 delegates after June 7th. This is why today, PredictIt.org says: “Traders give a brokered convention a 70% chance.”

With Trump’s complete failure to win the delegate race, with him losing steam in primaries and getting punked in almost every caucus and activist-filled GOP convention, it’s become almost a certainty that if Trump can’t get to Cleveland either at or very close to 1237 bound delegates, that he will fail to have sufficient delegates to actually win the nomination.

“The convention is an extension of the democratic process. … I am confident that we are going to win a contested convention.” – Ted Cruz, 4/9/16

Cruz will indeed win the nomination on the second ballot should Trump fail to win it on the first ballot. Victory will go to Cruz, the man who’s run the best campaign and is indeed the best candidate. And history will look back at this week and the Wisconsin victory and other wins this week as the turning point.