Chuck todd. Welcome to mtp daily. We are now just 15 hours until the polls open in wisconsin. This is a state that could dramatically change the course of the races on both sides. It also means that we are now just under 24 hours until chuck kicks off our live primary night coverage of the wisconsin, thats going to start at 5 00 p. M. Eastern tuesday. So lets get that countdown clock ticking. You you can see on the lower righthand side of your screen, we begin tonights take with a badger state battle royal, as donald trump and ted cruz unite in a massive effort to force john kasich out of the race before a possible contested convention. There are only two candidates whose names will appear on the ballot. Donald trump and myself. Under the rules, you have to have won eight states. There are only two candidates under that threshold. Hes 1 in 30. He ought to get the hell out, honestly. Its very, very unfair to have a stubborn guy like that to be campaigning. And as our own ari melber reports, trump and cruz are leading a big effort behind the scenes that would block kasich from availability at this summers convention. Were going to get the inside scoop from ari on that in just a moment. Kasich, meanwhile, is firing back against both trump and cruz today. At a rally today in new york state and in a News Conference with reporters, kasich bristled at the criticisms from trump and cruz, that he should get out. Donald trump said that i need to get out of the race, because im getting his voters. Ive got news for him. Im going to get a heck of a lot of his voters, thats whats going to happen. Im not getting out. Why would i get out . Particularly when trumps worried im going to get his votes . Ive spent 1 million including smearing me, senator ted, im not going to be a pin cushion or a marshmallow. And kasich insists he has no intention of going anywhere, regardless of the outcome in wisconsin tomorrow night. But the antitrump forces are looking to notch a big win. A turning point for the stoptrump movement. Cruz has held sizable leads in wisconsin. Theres a new one that shows cruz up five points, so trump still very much within striking distance there. What makes this race so intriguing are the wild spins in delicate allocation that we could see depending on the results. It is possible that donald trump could get shut out completely in wisconsin. Its also possible that even if he loses to ted cruz, he could cobble together a number of delegates, anyway. Lets explain, because in this tight race, every delegate is going to matter. Now, overall, there are 42 delegates up for grabs tomorrow night on the republican side in wisconsin. If you win the statewide vote, you get 18 of those 42. 18 to the statewide winner. The other 24, that gets a little more complicated. Each of wisconsins eight Congressional Districts will also award delegates in a winnertakeall contest by district. For every Congressional District you win, you get three delegates to the National Convention. Now, if you look at the map, wisconsins Congressional Districts are not all created equally. But right now, most of them appear to be favoring cruz. Ewe know this because in that Emerson College poll, i was just mentioning, they crunched the numbers, they broke it down by Congressional District and found cruz leading in most of those districts right now. They did show, though, trump having a slight lead in the second district. Thats around madison. Also, a big lead in the third district. Thats in la crosse, in that area. Thats about it. So under those under that breakdown, trump right now would have six delegates in the state. 6 of the 42. If cruz wins the state and wins most of the Congressional Districts, that means trump could get blown out. And that is what makes wisconsin such a wild card here. But weve also been here before. It is also possible that trump loses wisconsin tomorrow, that the headlines are really bad for him, but then on april 19th, he rebounds with a huge win and then a week later on the 26th throughout the northeast, when a bunch of northeast states hold primaries. We just dont know what is going to happen in this race, but there are cracks in trumps towering campaign. At least there appear to be. While trump has dominated the national narrative, his campaign has struggled at the local level. He appears to have been outmaneuvered in north dakotas state convention, where they picked 25 National Convention delegates. It looks like cruzs preferred delegates won a vast majority of the slots there. Although, a key asterisk here, north dakotas delegates are all officially unbound. So it remains to be seen who they will ultimately support when they get to the National Convention this summer. In tennessee, meanwhile, thats the state where donald trump won big in the primary. His Campaign Says that the States Republican Party chose some of its Convention Delegates unfairly in an attempt to steal support away from trump. At a rally just a few hours ago, trump ripped into the partys nominating process. Lets watch. Were dealing with a corrupt system. Were dealing with a system thats not fair. And i say to people, i dont care what it said. Any won, i should get more delegates. Like, i dont care. And im going to be joined momentarily by the Trump Campaigns Senior Adviser, Barry Bennett, who is leading their delegate strategy. And im going to be joined by the Washington Post dan balz who thinks wisconsin should reshape the republican contest mathematically and psychologically. Well begin this hour with msnbcs chief legal correspondent, ari melber. Hes been all over this war for delegates playing out on the republican side. Ari, take us through it. It looks line trump and cruz have both decided, its in their interests not to have kasich around at that convention. Thats right, steve. And as you know from following this, that could change. But right now we have word from both those aides, thats what i determined in this story, that thats going to be their approach. Now, the arguments for that either, weve done it this way before, or we want to do it, we have the power, were going to do it. And im sure you could talk to Barry Bennett about that. Heres what ted cruz said about that second argument, we have the power, today. If theres a contested convention, 80 of the delegates will be cruz delegates or trump delegates. Both donald and i have been very clear that we shouldnt be changing the rules because washington is unhappy with how the people are voting. What hes saying there, to be precise, is that they are going to have the majority of delegates, both on likely the rules committee, the rights of first draft, and tonight floor, so they can decide on who goes on the ballot. I also spoke to north blackwell, who is a really interesting guy whos been on the past seven Convention Rules committee and was a critic and wanted to change the very rule that limits the ballot. Hes a cruz supporter and said there was a time to change it and that time is passed. Heres what he told me. Under the rules, it appears kasich cant meet the eightstate threshold. They were established for people who largely all for kasich right now, the establishment, and changing the rules in the middle of the game is quite generally understood as unfair, steve. But if we get to june and the Cruz Campaign determines or the Trump Campaign, for that matter, hey, its now in our best interests to open this thing up as wide as possible, all bets are off. And thats what makes this so interesting and so much like a game of thrones or house of cards scenario. No one is thinking these rules are some sacrosanct thing. You would expect the convention to pursue the rules that help them. The cruz team has had a very focused approach here. And because they are second, its pretty obvious they want anything to narrow this and make them the alternative. The trump calculations, i know youre going to explore in this broadcast, could change more over time. Ari melber with the start of probably months of wrangling. Im joined by Barry Bennett, the Trump CampaignSenior Adviser. I want to start with a piece of sound. This was donald trump today talking about what we were just talking about here, this idea of john kasich and his role or lack thereof of the convention. Here was trump today, sending a different message, saying, hey, he wants john kasich to be placed in nomination. At least thats what it sounded like. Let me play that. Let minimum go to the convention. Hes the governor, you know, governor, were talking about cleveland. Let him put his name in contention and if things dont work out, let him be. So barry, do you want kasich to be nominated at the convention or do you want him out of the race . Weve had these rules now for three years and three months. And the rules state that you have to win a majority of the delegates in eight states. John kasich is not going to achieve that. And now in the ninth inning, he wants to change the rules to allow more outs. Its not going to happen. Barry, the clip we just played, your own candidate says let him go there and put his name in nomination. Your candidate is saying, he wants his name on the ballot in cleveland. What hes saying is, let him try. Hes not going to be able to get i done. In order to be nominated, you have to get the majority of delegates from eight states to sign a piece of paper to take to the secretary to get on the nomination process. Hes not going to be able to accomplish that. Let me ask you this, though, if we get to june, if we get to the end of this primary process here. Do you have any doubt that if ted cruz and his campaign determine then for whatever reason that its in their best interests to open this thing up to kasich or somebody else, that they would change their tune from where they are right now . Oh, probably, but they wont, because as soon as the establishment has someone else to choose other than ted cruz, they will. It will be ted who . So hes never going to let him do that. What about the where we stand right now in terms of wisconsin. The stoptrump movement, the nevertrump movement, whatever you want to call it, they are looking at wisconsin tomorrow and they are saying, this is going to be the start of a domino effect. Donald trump, they say, is going to lose wisconsin, a state that he should win. That is going to make him look week. Thats going to be the story, and then hell start losing other places hes supposed to win. What do you say to that . Well, they havent been right about anything so far. Well start with that. Two weeks ago, we were probably down about 15 points in wisconsin. Today, were down probably within the margin of error of the polls, its getting very tight. Its an open primary, that changes the dynamics. We could equal it out tomorrow. If we do, then this race is over. Frankly, if we win any delegates tomorrow, i think this race is over. Because ted cruz just cant afford to lose anymore delegates. Donald trump also gave that interview over the weekend. It appeared over the weekend, at least, maureen dowd in the New York Times, and he actually had a couple of lines in there that i think people were surprised to hear. One thing he said was that he thought that it actually had been a mistake on his part to send that retweet out, that picture of heidi, of heidi cruz, that unflattering pictuue of heidi cruz. Weve been asking for a while, but are we going to see a different tone at all from donald trump Going Forward . I think, especially once we get the primary process behind us, right now were battling in 56 states and territories, over delegates, rule committees, primaries, you name it. Weve got a lot going on. But once we get past this primary and get back to focusing on the issues, why druonald tru decided to run. The safety of our border, the security of our border, keeping drugs and Illegal Immigrants out of our country, those kind of things we need to get back to and i know that well do really well once we get back to talking about those issues. Barry bennett with the Trump Campaign, thanks for the time. Thank you. Well turn now to dan balz, the chief Political Correspondent with the Washington Post. Dan, thanks for taking a few minutes. Let me ask you the same a variation of the same question i just asked Barry Bennett there. He says he doesnt think wisconsin is any kind of a turning point. He says, actually, if you look at his polling, had them down a few weeks ago, he said they made up ground. But you asked that question today, could wisconsin be a turning point for this republican race nationally . How do you look at it . I think if ted cruz has a very good night on tuesday night, it could be a turning point. A very good night would be to sweep all the delegates and to shut out donald trump. Its not at all clear thats going to happen the late polls show that this is a closer race than the polls last week. Its anybodys guess. I think, what its going to end up as, cruz is clearly the favorite at this point. If trump brings a surprise, barrys probably right, that that is a feather in trumps cap and away he goes. But, theres still a ways you know, weve still got a number of events to take place. Clearly, the calendar after wisconsin, the immediate calendar favors trump. But if he doesnt do well tomorrow night in wisconsin, its not likely that he can get to 1,237 before california and even with california. So theres so much yet to play out. I think what were dealing with is that hes come off of two difficult weeks, with a variety of selfinflicted wounds. And i think if he takes a lumping in wisconsin, people are going to equate part of the result to the problems hes created for himself. Thats the other question, too. That the events of the last two weeks may not just be jeopardizing his position in wisconsin, but when we talk about all of these scenarios at the convention this summer where republicans could deny him the nomination, all of these delegate maneuverings we see in all of these places, do you think this has added a sense of urgency . Has strengthened the resolve of the republican establishment to take advantage of any loophole they can find to deny trump the nomination this summer . Theres two realities. One is that the convention can write its own rules. When barry says the rules have been in effect, theyre not actually in effect for this convention. Theyre the carryover from 2012. But as both the cruz and Trump Campaigns have been saying, if they have the overwhelming majority of the delegates, they will probably be able to write rules that are more favorable to them. Thats what mitt romney and his folks were able to do in 2012, to keep ron paul from having his name put in nomination. So but, you know, the other thing, steve, is, you know, just think of weve been through february and march. Were now in early april. We have to go through april, may, early june primaries, and then maneuvering before the convention. There is so much time, it is impossible to predict what the circumstances are going to look like, by the time we get to the eve of cleveland. And it also seems, we are talking with ari, talking to barry, too, just a minute ago, about this idea of trump and cruz, at least for now. And like you say, theres a lot that can change between now and convention, but at least for now, calculating that not having kasich on that ballot, not having kasich up for a nomination would benefit both of them. Im trying to think about that from the cruz standpoint, and maybe one of the things theyre worried about there, is the idea of the dark horse candidate, the white knight. The candidate whos not currently out there. Paul ryans name gets mentioned a lot. If you put kasich on the ballot, if the thing extends for a few ballots, that possibility enters into the mix more, doesnt it . It certainly does. Its always been the Cruz Campaigns position that they would like john kasich and everybody else out of this race. They have wanted to have a headtohead contest with donald trump for many, many weeks. So we know that thats in their interests. Given what the audio you played from donald trump, and from what he said versus what barry said, its impossible, at this point, to know what the Trump Campaign really thinks about that. Thats right. Dan balz from the Washington Post, thanks for the time. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. And coming up, recesssive traits. Could Donald Trumps predictions of an economy on the brink send his campaign over the edge . Plus, the evolution of the sanders revolution. Campaign insiders look backward to give a new take on their candidates path forward. Stay tuned. There are two billion people who dont have access to basic banking, but that is changing. At temenos, with the microsoft cloud, we can enable a banker to travel to the most remote locations with nothing but a phone and a tablet. Everywhere where theres a phone, you have a bank. Now a person is able to start a business, and employ somebody for the first time. The microsoft cloud helped us to bring banking to ten Million People in just two years. Its transforming our world. Whewhat does it look like . Ss, is it becoming a better professor by being a more adventurous student . Is it one day giving your daughter the opportunity she deserves . Is it finally witnessing all the artistic wonders of the Natural World . Whatever your definition of success is, helping you pursue it, is ours. Tiaa. Welcome back. All eyes will be on americas dairy land tomorrow. 86 democratic delegates going to be up for grabs in the primary there. And 42 on the republican side. And here are some key areas to watch as the votes srt coming in tomorrow night. Well start with the wow countie