Don’t you love a contest with no losers?

Donald Trump won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Virginia, and may yet win Vermont. (And, I suppose, Alaska, though at this point I doubt it.) He’s taken a significant lead in the delegate count, and he’ll likely have won a majority of delegates in at least one more state, and possibly as many as three, bringing him closer to the magic number eight that guarantees his name may be placed in nomination at the convention. So he’s a winner!

But – Trump was the poll leader in states he wound up losing (Oklahoma), and the margin was much closer than expected in other states (Virginia, Vermont). Relative to expectations (including my own) of a near sweep, he underperformed. So he’s a loser!

Meanwhile, Ted Cruz lost most of the contests in his strongest region. He’ll have an extraordinarily difficult time making up the necessary ground in future states. Sure, he’ll fight hard for Kansas, for Idaho – but elsewhere through March 15th, the prospects are bleak indeed. He needed to derail the Trump express – and he didn’t. So he’s a loser!

But – Cruz won his home state decisively, sufficiently so that he may well get an outright majority of the delegates from this huge prize. He won Oklahoma (and may still win Alaska). He has more wins than any candidate but Donald Trump, and also more second-place finishes than any candidate period. He clearly came in second in the delegate count – and well ahead of Rubio. So he’s a winner!

Rubio, of course, finally broke his losing streak in Minnesota. And he came so close in Virginia! So he’s a winner!

But – he came in third in Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont, and is struggling for second in Georgia and Massachusetts. He may get virtually no delegates out of huge Texas, and may also be virtually shut out in smaller Alabama and Vermont. He’s going to come in way behind Cruz in the delegate count. And the map going forward looks only somewhat more congenial to him than to Cruz. So he’s a loser!

And what about Kasich? If he pulls out a win in Vermont, then he’ll have broken his losing streak as well. Expectations for Kasich outside of New England were virtually nonexistent, and within New England he outperformed his polls. So he’s a winner?

Not really. But he’ll spin it that way. Meanwhile he has virtually no delegates, and no prospects of winning many before March 15th. Rubio underperformed enough that he is going to have a terribly hard time catching up to where he needs to be, or convincing his remaining rivals that their causes are far more hopeless than his. But he didn’t underperform enough for Kasich to get a serious second look – and to get that second look, Kasich needed to show at least some life in states like Minnesota, Virginia and Georgia. In two of those three states, he’s losing to Carson. So he’s a loser – but perhaps not enough of a loser to drop out.

Which means – once again – Trump is the winner!