Donald Trump is crushing the competition, with the changes the RNC put in place to protect an establishment front-runner from an insurgent challenge poised to mostly protect the insurgent front-runner from an establishment challenge. The one area where reformers fell short -- the proportional awarding of delegates awarded in contests held the first two weeks of March -- could wind up being the lifeline that keeps Trump's challengers afloat (assuming they're able to meet the high thresholds many Super Tuesday states require of candidates before they're able to receive any delegates at all.)

In many Super Tuesday and other March states, there isn't reliable polling that isn't months old. But with that asterisk in mind (although: winning three contests in a row usually doesn't diminish a candidate's position), Trump is the leader in Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia, Vermont. Ted Cruz is leading in Arkansas, and holding on in his home state of Texas. Rubio isn't currently favored anywhere. Including Florida.

Rubio pointed out today that the nomination isn't decided "by how many states you win," saying that March 15 is "where you have to start winning states." But any path to the nomination that appears to involve writing off Super Tuesday and depend on a sweep of the later winner-take-all contests is...an unconventional one (and those 1992 comparisons have a few holes). American Bridge seems to be enjoying the show.

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Meanwhile, Ted Cruz is looking to Texas to revive his campaign (which means that the time may have come for him to ix-nay the Alamo references in the stump speech). Today, he was endorsed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Also today, a poll was released that had Trump and Cruz tied in the state.

Trump has said the consolidation theory (that support for the other candidates amounts to an anti-Trump vote that could unify behind one candidate -- a theory which, by the way, seems to be evaporating by the minute) is flawed because he'd be likely to claim a significant share of any exiting candidate's votes; second-choice polling seems to bear that out. So does this stat: For the past four months, between 55 and 65 percent of Republican voters have told pollsters that they could see themselves supporting Trump's White House bid. At this point in the race four years ago, the figure saying the same for Romney was around 60 percent.

Another theory fading fast: the Trump ceiling proposition. In a five-candidate field yesterday, Trump still came very close to winning an outright majority of Nevada voters. Besides New Hampshire -- where nobody except Trump managed to break the 20 percent mark -- the remaining competitive candidates have maintained support within a very narrow range. Marco Rubio has registered between 22 and 24 percent in Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada. Disregarding New Hampshire, Cruz's showing has dropped with each contest, from a high-water mark of nearly 28 percent to last night's 21.4 percent.

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Meanwhile, Trump has gone from a mid-20s showing in Iowa to mid-30s in New Hampshire and South Carolina to mid-40s last night. More Nevada Republicans voted for Donald Trump last night than voted for all candidates combined back in the 2012 caucuses.

After Trump's Nevada win, Rubio and Cruz still seem more focused on trying to beat each other than Trump. And while Cruz has tussled with the front-runner, Rubio's continued reluctance to engage Trump directly has many wondering if he ever will.

Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan sent a post-Nevada fundraising email saying the campaign "looks even more like a two-man race." Cruz, still bruised from last night's narrow third-place showing, pushed back on questions about whether his campaign really had a path forward. "I’m curious how many reporters ask Marco Rubio, after losing four states in a row: So when do you drop out?" he said today.

Cruz and Rubio may be no closer to beating Trump -- but so far each has beaten the other twice. Jim Tankersley has a great breakdown of the social science that explains why it makes no sense for either of them to drop out now (since last night's vote was Vegas-related, it involves the rules to Hearts.)

GOP TRAIL MIX: The GOP keeps breaking primary turnout records: Last night's Nevada turnout was more than two-thirds higher than 2012's. Another trend: Moderate voters are on the decline.

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-- What's driving both trends, in large part: Anger. Even Mitt Romney is feeling it, channeling Howard Beale today: "We’re just mad as hell" (He also told Fox there was "no question" Donald Trump has the "clearest path" to the Republican nomination.)

-- Romney wasn't done: later, he said there's good reason to think "there's a bombshell in Donald Trump's taxes," (shot: fired) drawing the expected anti-Romney Trump tweetstorm (sample: "Mitt Romney, who totally blew an election that should have been won and whose tax returns made him look like a fool, is now playing tough guy")

-- On a related note, here's an autopsy for the RNC's post-2012 autopsy.

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-- More post-mortem news: On a donor call, Jeb Bush apologized for losing.

-- Endorsements may mean "very little" to Donald Trump, but he's picking them up: Reps. Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins are his first Hill backers.

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-- If you're skeptical of Trump's Latino voter "win," you're not wrong (and he and Bernie Sanders are still both struggling with Hispanic voters beyond Nevada); still, you'd be wrong to dismiss it.

-- A few weeks ago, Ben Carson responded to a question about whether his money-bleeding campaign was a scam by saying he didn't think it was, to the best of his knowledge. Now he sounds even less sure: “We had people who didn't really seem to understand finances. Or maybe they did -- maybe they were doing it on purpose."

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-- Shades of #Gilmentum: In a statement, Carson's team said it was "encouraged by the upward momentum he has experienced over the past two months and looks forward to Super Tuesday." (It's not clear exactly how much more of this momentum the campaign can handle: via some rough #math, Carson's RCP average for the month of February appears to be roughly 20 percent lower than it was in December.)

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-- Also not going anywhere for now: John Kasich: If he gets out, he says, then Trump will win.

-- Rep. Peter King goes after Donald Trump's Queens cred: Jamaica Estates was for rich kids, he says. "There's no tough guys from Jamaica Estates"

-- Here's a Stephanie McCrummen deep dive on life after The Kasich Hug.

WE MAY NEED A BIGGER WALL:

THE VIEW FROM THE FIELD:

Bernie Sanders is following Hillary Clinton's playbook from a few weeks ago, focusing on a different attack headline each day after deciding to mount a new contrast push. Today’s hit: In South Carolina, he went after Clinton on '90s-era welfare reform, saying that she strongly supported the measure, and helped round up votes to get it passed.

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He also said Clinton momentum was all talk: "The Clinton people are good spinners," he said.

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But some things aren't spinnable: The Sanders team may say they're not giving up on South Carolina, but he plans to spend the majority of the week leading up to Saturday's vote outside the state. If Clinton wins as expected -- she's still posting leads of 20+ percentage points in South Carolina -- that will give her wins in three of the first four primary season contests.

Looking at the most recent polls from March states (asterisk: for some of them, that doesn't mean they were conducted very recently): Clinton holds leads in 18 states, Sanders in just two: Massachusetts and Vermont.

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ON THE AIR: Another Flint ad from the Clinton campaign (VIDEO)

MORE TRAIL MIX: Here's the post-Nevada Harry Reid endorsement of Hillary Clinton

-- Here's a look at why Bernie Sanders often comes across as more Jew-ish than Jewish.

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-- And here's a closer look at the relationship between the Sanders team and a labor super PAC.

-- Democrats shouldn't take Trumpmentum as a reason to relax, says Matthew Continetti, who has "Seven Reasons Democrats Should Be Terrified of Donald Trump"

-- An admiral, testifying on Capitol Hill today: "Acronyms kill, m'am."

-- A Texas court has dismissed the last felony charge against former governor Rick Perry, which could mean the end of the case against him.