One of the things that the media (which have been consistently wrong about Donald Trump's durability in the GOoPer primaries) have been parroting in recent days is that "once the field narrows", Trump's support will drop and one of the establishment candidates (like Bush, Walker, Rubio or Kasich) will take over.
Well, I don't think that is very likely. Here's why.
Consider the GOoPer primary field now. Here is the latest RCP national polling average. The list has only 15 names. Perhaps because a couple of candidates (Gilmore and Pataki) are "permanent zeros" and therefore, are not even mentioned!
OK, now to the "once the field narrows" theory. How about cutting the field by half? It is a fair assumption to make that the candidates in the bottom half are the ones that will get out. What will that amount to? Here is the list:
Gilmore 0
Pataki 0
Graham 0.3
Jindal 0.3
Perry 0.8
Santorum 1.0
Paul 2.0
Christie 2.5
That is 8 candidates, roughly half of the 17-member field. And what is their total number? 6.9 percent of the vote! Even if those voters go en bloc to the second-placed Carson, he would still be second at 22.9 to Trump's 29.8
And in the top half, the people likely to drop out are the outsiders, i.e. Carson and Fiorina. Even though Carson is placed second now, he doesn't have much of an organization nor is he a media celebrity like Trump. Besides, let's face it - a black man doesn't really have a chance of making it in a GOP primary anyway.
So, when Carson leaves, his voters are likely to be divided among Cruz and Huckabee.
Even in the best case scenario where all his voters i.e. 22.9 percent, go to the former, Cruz can still only barely match Trump's numbers. To be realistic though, at least a sizable chunk of Carson's voters will move to Huckabee, who is a closer match to Carson's brand of crazy than Cruz is. That will leave Trump as the leading candidate.
And if Fiorina quits, her supporters are likely to be distributed among the many of her fellow also-rans like Bush, Walker, Rubio, Kasich etc. It is just 5 points, so it doesn't really impact Trump, even in the extreme case where all of Fiorina voters moved to say, Bush.
So the chances are very good that Trump will be the leader even if more than half of the GOoPer primary field quits. So much for the media's "once the field narrows" theory! But that will be just one more in a long list of failed media theories in these primaries so far.