What exactly is happening with Chris Christie beyond awesome twitter memes . And as the Supreme Court hears the most important reproductive rights case in 20 year, senator al franken on the republican blockade when all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. After last nights Election Results, this much is clear. Barring some huge unforeseen event that forces him out of the republican primary race, donald trump will either become the partys president ial nominee, or despite having the most delegates, hell be toppled by gop leaders this summer in cleveland and could potentially be the messiest, most Chaotic Convention in decades. Until now for the entire time trump has led the race, conventional wisdom has held the only way to beat him is to narrow the field and consolidate the antitrump vote. Now the opposite seems to be true. After super tuesday, the only candidate winding down his campaign appears to be ben carson and many of his voters are expected to go to trump. Everyone else is still in it. And while no one of them has much hope of defeating him outright, the partys best shot at stopping trump may be for all of them to stay in the race and split the upcoming votes as evenly as possible. Because this is the magic number. 1,237. Thats the number of delegate trump needs to lock up the republican nomination. Now, if no one candidate gets that number, then the convention gets to choose the nominee. A contested convention. It wont be pretty, but it might just be the gops only last hope. At least one of trumps rivals is signaling hes ready to fight all the way to cleveland. No matter how long it takes, no matter how many states it takes, no matter how many weeks and months it takes, i will campaign as long as it takes and wherever it takes to ensure that i am the next president of the united states. After last night, trumps lead in the delegate count almost 100 delegates ahead of ted cruz is looking pretty formidable, if not insurmountable. Less than two weeks from tonight on march 15th, another big batch of states hold their primaries including florida and ohio which both give all their delegates to the winner instead of awarding them proportionately. A lot of delegates at stake. John kasich, ohios current governor, and marco rubio junior senator from physical. Are counting on their homefield advantage but even if they were both to eke out a win, it probably wont be enough to catch up to trump. As president obamas former campaign guru, david plouffe, who knows a thing or two about this tweeted last night, a reminder unlike in boxing there are no lateround knockouts in the sport of delegate acquisition. Fall behind too much and its over. As of march 15th, 58 of all the available republican delegates will have been allocated. It could be basically a whole ball game which is why the fractured and feckless gop establishment is now scrambling to halt trumps momentum in the next 13 days before the winner take all contest. The antitrump group our principles pac released a new online attack ad today. Will you unequivocally condemn david duke and say you dont want his vote or that of other White Supremacists . Do you think this will put an end to the socalled Birther Movement . I want to go on to what donald trump said after he said this is out. The word is he wasnt a good student and he ended up getting into columbia and harvard. How does he get into harvard . Thats just code for saying he got into law school because hes black. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker who just saw trump in his home state just became the latest republican official to announce he wont vote for trump in the general election even though that state handed trump his largest margin of victory last night. And tomorrow, mitt romney is delivering a speech on the state of the race in which hes expected to make the case against trump. Its a sign of how truly desperate things are gotten that Lindsey Graham who said this year that choosing between trump and cruz would be like being shot or poisoned, now thinks cruz may be the partys best hope. We may be in a position we have to rally around ted cruz as the only way to stop donald trump. Im not so sure that would work. Youd recommend that in order to stop donald trump, rally behind ted cruz . I cant believe id say yes, but yes. Tom delay argued primary is only part of it, when it comes to the convention, all votes are off. The popular vote is important only in allocating delegates. 60 of the delegate in the Republican Convention will be picked proportionately. So if trump never gets more than 40 in each state, tonight hell only get 250 delegates. So no one has to beat him for him to lose . Thats right. The delegates get to choose. It is a party function. The party is putting up a nominee. Im joined now by someone whos more than a passing familiarity with that party. Rnc chair, former rnc chair, Michael Steele and msnbc political analyst. All right, michael. Lets talk delegate math. Nothing lights up the boards like delegate math. Oh, yeah. So heres what we got coming out of last night. Its actually interesting to me that trumps lead over cruz is not massive. Right . But the problem there is that cruz has already gotten the big boost hes going to get from the homestate win in texas. So there is no huge win on the board for him to get. Is first of all, is it possible for cruz to overtake trump in that and make up that deficit . There may be a pathway for him when you consider that last night what people glossed over and didnt pay too much attention to was the state of oklahoma. Oklahoma was the first state in this primary season that had a closed primary which means only republicans got to vote, not independents, not democrats who show up to switch and vote. It was Straight Party line Party Activists who went out and voted and he did very well. So he can now go make the case in these other states that are coming down the line this weekend and next week that those conservatives have a rallying point, that he has shown both in iowa and in oklahoma, specifically, that he can become the focus for a lot of conservatives. If hes able to do that, he wont necessarily, you know, may not win, he can then begin to pull some of that conservative vote away from donald trump. But heres the that gets us, again, to the convention. Everything leads to the convention. Thats my point. If youre talking about an outright overtake, were it the case that the ideal situation in the field would winnow cruz and trump, i dont think i agree. Those states are, even in a winnowed field, those states are more advantageous for trump. Those are 160 delegates on the board. I cant do the math you end up at a position if trump stays in this barring some crazy unforeseen twist, the only options, go to the convention, take it away from trump at the convention or trump get to 1,237. Thats basically it. The first option, you know, taking as much away from him as you can starts now. Thats what youre hearing rubio talk about, cruz talk about, kasich pinning his hopes on ohio. Their goal is to slow the momentum, slow down the number by which he wins. Now, keep in mind that when you go to winner take all, donald trump even if he holds the proportions that he holds right now is still going to win those states. Right. Because the rest of that 60some percent or 58 of the vote is split up among three other individuals so donald trump right now is still in the best possible seat to just win this outright even though you have the establishment types trying as hard as they can to take it away from him. So lets say everyone stays in, everyone takes their bites. Kasich maybe takes a bunch of people in rhode island, in connecticut, rubio does relatively well in florida even if he doesnt win or he wins, hes still going to be down. Can you imagine for a moment what that would look like in cleveland if donald trump goes in with the most delegates and somehow the Party Engineers a way of taking the nomination away from him . All hell would break out. It would be armageddon on the floor. I mean, it just this is what youre talking about. So the guy that comes into the convention with the plurality of the votes, probably some 200 votes, delegates away from getting the nomination on the first ballot, that youre somehow going to convince his delegates, first off, to move off of him to the guy who came in second, let alone third place . Right. It just doesnt work like that. So now theyre trying to roll out the mitt romney carpet to see if, you know, by having him come out and make a, you know, give us a state of the election in 2016, i dont know what thats all about because all its going to do is solidify Donald Trumps vote. Yeah. Because as people tell you, they didnt listen to romney in 2012, why are they going to listen to him now . The best thing mitt romney could do is endorse donald trump tomorrow if hed like to slow up his momentum. I agree. Joining me, betsy woodruff. Former dnc chair and msnbc political analyst howard dean whos a supporter of Hillary Clinton. Howard, let me start with you. Last night we got this, a little bit of a preview i think of trump in the general. You can start to see the pivoting, real economic nationalism, economic populism, hitting the Obama Clinton economy from the left. Is that what youre anticipating this general election looks like if he gets the nomination . This general if he should get the nomination, it could look like anything. The one thing you can predict about donald trump, it will be a huge surprise, nobody will have any what hes going to do next which, of course, is likely to scare the hell out of most american voters. Betsy, there is a belief that is, i think, a genuine belief among the republican political operative class that trump will get his clock cleaned by Hillary Clinton. Is that fair to say thats a kind of widespread consensus view among republican political professionals . I think its fair to say thats a view that has a significant number of adherence. That said, there are some who argue that trump could be the most competitive because hed drive up turnout and messes up the turnout models. Were already seeing republican primary turnout spike dramatically compared to 2012, last republican contested primary. In nevada, more people caucused for trump than the total number of people who caucused for everyone combined in 2012. Virginia, more republicans voted in the primary than democrats voted in their primary even though democrats have done really, really well in virginia over the last few election cycles. So theres an argument that we dont actually know how this is going to play out. If trump can galvanize, all the people who go to rallies end up voting for him, it wont be a guaranteed win for hillary. Theres a New York Times article about this today, a growing theme, something we couvered about the turnout gap. Hillary clinton got 3. 3 million votes last night. She has a half million more votes total. Right . Do you worry were seeing flagging enthusiasm, or the party in power and fewer contestants . I dont think its about flagging enthusiasm at all. And im not worried i also dont think theres any Predictive Value in looking at the two turnouts. I do agree that we should not take donald trump for granted should he be the nominee. I think hes surprised people all year. Wed be really stupid to think that were just going to roll over him because hes a nut. You got to be careful of that. You got to take him seriously. And i think i think we will and i do think hillary will be the next president , but weve got to our battle on our side is not done either, so well see. Yeah, no, that is absolutely true. Betsy, glenn beck and erick erickson, sort of floating this idea, take a listen to glenn beck floating a rubio cruz ticket idea. Ted cruz as the president , marco rubio, and i think they should announce this and run as this. I think we should begin to demand this. I think this should go all over the internet. Erick erickson saying a cruz rubio ticket makes the most sense right now. Pair up, announce the deal, let rubio win florida, get to the convention and make it so. That strikes me as fan fiction rather than actual political advice. Its kind of adorable, right, the level of creativity and imagination thats going into this. Its actually sort of endearing. Think its fan fiction that theres going to be a mad max brokered convention idea. The reality is getting cruz and rubio to magically deflate their egos to put together some sort of unity ticket, good luck, bless your heart, well see what happens. The fact is donald trump right now is the prohibitive favorite to be the republican nominee and republicans are to an extent making peace with it because he does drive turnout, because he has phenomenal name i. D. And because perhaps having a wildcard candidate against a fairly predictable democratic candidate might give them a decent shot as odd as i feel saying that. Howard, if you had to predict, i mean, weve seen all these riffs and all these divisions, seen this never trump movement, have Charlie Baker saying he wont, ben sasse, senator of nebraska saying hell never vote for trump. What is your prediction about the degree to which people will coalesce behind trump as the nominee if, in fact, that happens . I think it will be very problematic. Look, ive thought for a long time this is the election which the republicans need to lose for their own benefit. Thats going to change the orientation of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is heading off a cliff. They say things that are completely alienating to everybody under 35 in this country. Yeah. And in eight years theyre going to be 43. This is a losing game theyre playing and have to go through this catharsis just as we did when we nominated three people in a row too liberal for the american electorate. This is the election thats likely to happen. Howard dean. Thank you. Betsy woodruff. Thank you both. After Hillary Clintons big wins on super tuesday, Bernie Sanders says hes staying in until the convention. Jane sanders will join me next. Later, Chris Christie and the press conference that broke the internet. What was he thinking . Today the Supreme Court hears the most important Abortion Case in 20 years. And senator al franken on the fight over the next nominee, ahead. announcer need to hire fast . Go to ziprecruiter. Com and post your job to over 100 of the webs leading job boards with a single click. Then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. You put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. Makes my job a lot easier. announcer over 400,000 businesses have already used ziprecruiter. And now you can use ziprecruiter for free. Go to ziprecruiter. Com offer99 time now to check in on a special all in feature, the department of least surprising headlines. Todays courtesy of rolling stones. Bernie sanders, i like fish. The candidate also gave praise to the bands drummer, jon fishman, who was in attendance. Jon and fish have made new england proud. They are one of the great bands, have been one of the great bands in this country, so jon, we thank you very much. Fish, of course, got its start in Burlington Three decades ago and drummer jon fishman longtime sanders supporter says hes been following sanders career since his days as the mayor of burlington. After super tuesday, though, what is the path to victory for Bernie Sanders . His campaign vows to stay in this race until the convention. Next, ill talk to the top surrogate for Bernie Sanders, his wife, jane. The democratic candidates, super tuesday did not shake out entirely as expected. Hillary clinton won all those Southern States you see there among them. She also won massachusetts which is practically sanders backyard. Senator Bernie Sanders won his home state of vermont plus oklahoma, minnesota, and colorado. Sanders campaign was contesting five states. They won four of them. The loss of massachusetts was a disappointment. After a strong showing, clinton speaking from miami, florida, congratulated sanders on his wins but continued to take aim at her likely general election opponent should she win the nomination. That work is not to make America Great again. America never stopped being great. We have to make america whole. We have to fill in. I believe what we need in America Today is more love and kindness. Sanders in vermont spoke just after winning that state. Made clear hes in this primary battle to the convention. Let me assure you, were going to take our fight for economic justice, for social justice, for environmental sanity, for a world of peace. This morning the Sanders Campaign held a press event to discuss the path forward for their campaign. Super tuesday, in my view, was, perhaps, the single best day on the calendar for Hillary Clinton. If Hillary Clinton does not consistently win in the weeks and months ahead in big states and in small, questions will arise around her candidacy and her ability to coalesce a nominating majority of delegates will be, i think, substantially inhibited. The good news and the bad news for the Sanders Campaign is that all states in the democratic primary race are proportional, no winner take all. Candidates get delegates in proportion to their vote share but must get 15 of the vote to win any delegates. Over time, clintons lead which is now nearly 200 allocated delegates more than sanders will become difficult for sanders to overcome because of the proportional allocation, a lesson clinton learned in her 2008 race lens barack obama. Joining me now, spouse of 2016 president ial candidate Bernie Sanders, jane sanders. Its won