The Establishment may have one last shot at taking Donald Trump out before the convention: Hold its collective nose and support non-Establishment favorite Sen. Ted Cruz, while making Sen. Marco Rubio an offer he can’t refuse to get out of the race.

The SEC Primary was supposed to be Cruz’s firewall — it’s what he built his entire campaign around — but he came away with only three wins in the Super Tuesday contests. But those three wins keep Cruz’s candidacy viable against the billionaire businessman, as Rubio has a much harder case to make for staying in the race to be the alternative consensus candidate to Trump.

And with both Cruz and Rubio in the race, they split the anti-Trump vote and possibly ensure his victory — he’s racking up delegates while his competitors are fighting for table scraps. Therefore the Establishment’s only choice, if it doesn’t want Trump, may be to coalesce behind Cruz.

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One Establishment leader sought to get the ball rolling Tuesday. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime ally of failed presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, said “You know Ted Cruz is not my favorite, by any means. … But we may be in a position where we have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald Trump.”

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He isn;t the only Old Guard Republican to press the case. Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, who stands adamantly opposed to Trump, suggested that the remaining candidates need to clear the field in order to defeat Trump. “You have to beat him in Florida and Ohio, the first winner-take-all states, which means there has to be a de facto agreement between the opposition candidates,” Kristol said.

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But support from the Establishment, and any kind of alliance with Rubio, presents a conundrum for Cruz. The key for Cruz to win is to continue to paint himself as a principled outsider while pegging Trump as part of the Establishment. So he would have to welcome Establishment support without exactly embracing it.

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Undoubtedly, Rubio remains the Establishment favorite in the race, but Rubio, having won just one state, may need to graciously bow out if he believes that Trump would be, as he says, a “disaster” — particularly if he loses Florida. There is arguably much that the Republican Party and its elites could offer to Rubio to pressure him to drop out of the race — maximum support for him in the Senate, a cushy job as Florida governor. And perhaps the party backs him next time, in 2020, to run against a President Hillary Clinton.

In order for this strategy to work, the GOP needs to act fast before the mid-March contests in Michigan, Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, which may cement Trump as the nominee.

The coming days will bring desperation among the Establishment elite and dire warnings of a split party. They have so few options they may be forced to embrace Cruz, the anti-Establishment candidate. What a long, strange trip it’s been.