"Not only can Cruz achieve a majority of delegates before the July convention, our projections indicate the Senator has a clear and realistic path to achieve 1,262 delegates while Trump is most likely to receive a total of 827 delegates," Chris Wilson, the director of research and analytics for Cruz's campaign, wrote in a memo sent to out Tuesday night. "This remains true regardless of all likely scenarios that may result on March 15th, and it remains true even if Marco Rubio and/or John Kasich remain in the race through March 22nd, effectively allowing Donald Trump to win Arizona."

Hmmmmm.

[Cruz says he has a path to victory over Trump, but he needs help soon]

By any measure, Tuesday night was a bad one for Cruz. His campaign thought he would win in Missouri and North Carolina. He won neither. Delegate allocation in Missouri and Illinois favored Trump — big time. Cruz was behind Trump by less than 100 delegates going into Tuesday's votes; now Trump stands at 683 to Cruz's 422, according to NBC's delegate count, a gap of 261 delegates. (In the run-up to Tuesday's votes, the Cruz campaign insisted that a delegate lead for Trump of 250 to 300 was "decent" while a Trump edge topping 300 would be "bad.")

At the moment, Cruz needs to win 80 percent of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination outright. That percentage is likely to rise next Tuesday when Arizona votes. Arizona is a winner-take-all state, and Cruz's side admits that Trump is an almost certain winner of all 58 delegates the state is giving out.

But, according to Wilson, it's also next Tuesday when the seeds of Cruz's potential run to 1,237 will begin. Utah votes that day in a winner-take-most caucus. What that means is that if any candidate breaks 50 percent, that candidate gets all 40 of Utah's delegates. Citing the endorsement of Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the Cruz campaign believes they will win the state. But winning might not be enough. If Cruz wins but gets under 50 percent — and Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who was endorsed this morning by former governor Mike Leavitt, get more than 15 percent — then the 40 delegates will be allocated proportionally. That would be a far less lucrative delegate haul for Cruz.

The other pre-June 7 state that Wilson highlights as a Cruz windfall is Wisconsin, which votes April 5. The statewide winner in Wisconsin gets 15 delegates, while the winner in each congressional district receives three delegates for each win. That means that, in theory, one candidate — Cruz, based on Wilson's math — could walk away with virtually every delegate in the state. The problem with that math is that Wisconsin's Midwestern neighbor Illinois allocates delegates in a very similar way, and Trump dominated the delegate chase there on Tuesday.

The big date for Cruz, according to Wilson, is June 7. He believes Cruz will win Montana, a winner-take-all state, and claim its 27 delegates. Cruz will then take a majority of New Mexico's 24 delegates; the Land of Enchantment holds a proportional primary. Then comes California and its 53 congressional districts — each of which award three delegates to the winner of the district. Cruz will win 55 percent (or more) of the vote statewide in California, according to Wilson's memo, a margin that should allow him to claim the vast majority of the state's 172 delegates (including 10 delegates at large and three pre-determined).

Polling is scarce in California but what there is suggests that the race is not joined yet — with Trump holding a slight edge, probably because of name identification.

Is all of what Wilson lays out possible? Well, yes. In that it is mathematically possible that Cruz wins 80 percent of the remaining delegates because, well, 80 percent isn't 101 percent. (Math!) And, yes, it is slightly more possible that even if Cruz doesn't get to 1,237 delegates, he winds up with more delegates going into the convention in Cleveland in July.

But these are not likely scenarios — or anything close. And what they require is faith that what has come before in this primary process won't continue in the coming two-plus months of the race. That Trump will somehow begin a slow-motion collapse in support that simply hasn't been borne out yet despite predictions, almost every day, that it's about to happen.

There's no doubt that Cruz is the only person other than Trump in the race who has both a mathematically possible chance at winning the nomination in the primary process and a genuine opportunity to be the choice of the party at an open convention. But the case that he will out-delegate Trump or even get to 1,267 seems decidedly far-fetched.