WASHINGTON — Republican leaders in Washington have spent years casting Tea Party allies and hard-liners in Congress as merely a restive minority, a fringe element to be tolerated.
Now, with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz rising to the top of the 2016 GOP presidential primary, those party leaders are confronting the possibility that they might be the outliers.
One by one, Washington’s favored candidates have dropped out of the White House race. Those who are left — Marco Rubio and John Kasich — face long odds and sudden-death primaries in their home states next week. In private conversations and public newspaper editorials, talk of a historic splintering of the GOP centers on the prospect of the establishment, not the insurgents, dissolving or breaking away.
“Something important is ending. It is hard to believe what replaces it will be better,” Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for former President Ronald Reagan, wrote in a Wall Street Journal column.
Republicans long have grappled with a divide between party leaders and grass-roots supporters. Recent presidential elections papered over the fissures rather than resolved them, with Republicans sending centrist candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney into the general election even as the GOP electorate became more conservative.
Leaders expected the 2016 election to follow the same pattern.
Money flowed toward former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the son and brother of presidents, who seemed to embody the spirit of inclusiveness that GOP leaders called for after Romney’s staggering lack of success with minority voters in 2012. Even when Trump shook up the race last summer, more traditional Republicans confidently predicted his appeal would be short-lived.
But Trump has maintained his grip on the GOP field, with Cruz emerging as his strongest competitor.
As establishment favorites such as Bush have dropped out, Trump and Cruz’s share of the vote has increased. In a diverse array of states, from Maine to Georgia to Nevada, they’ve carried more than 60 percent.
“It’s a weird election year,” said Trent Lott, the former Mississippi senator who is backing Kasich. “Depending on how this election turns out, the party may be different.”
To some Republicans, that would be welcome. “For the party to fix itself, you need to destroy the establishment lane,” said Michael Needham, head of Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy group that has pushed for ideological purity among GOP elected officials.
Rubio of Florida and Kasich of Ohio have one last chance to emerge as viable alternatives. Their home states vote March 15 and offer winner-take-all caches of delegates that could revive sagging candidacies.
Rubio does not plan to leave Florida until after next week’s primary. Campaign officials concede it will be virtually impossible to stay in the race without a home-state win but have expressed confidence voters will move toward him as primary day draws closers.
But with Florida’s easy access to absentee and early voting, more than 571,000 Republicans have cast their ballots.
Trump’s campaign is spending about $2 million on ads in Florida, as well as $1 million in Ohio, says Campaign Media Analysis Group.
Cruz aides are making noise about taking on Rubio in his home state, hoping to block him from winning so Cruz can move to a head-to-head race with Trump.
