It now seems likely that:
- In order for either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio to become the Republican nominee, he must first consolidate the anti-Trump vote, which is to say that either can succeed only if the other drops out.
- Cruz and Rubio have approximately equal chances of driving each other out.
- Each would prefer to drive the other out sooner rather than later — i.e. before Trump wraps this whole thing up anyway.
Given that, it seems like one of the following two things should happen at tonight’s debate:
- Cruz, after making an eloquent case against Trump and explaining why he thinks it’s important to keep Trump out of the White House, turns to Rubio and offers to flip a coin right on the spot. The loser drops out of the race and the winner takes on Trump.
- Rubio, after making an elegant case against Trump and explaining why he thinks it’s important to keep Trump out of the White House, turns to Cruz and offers to flip a coin right on the spot. The loser drops out of the race and the winner takes on Trump.
Either:
or
This gives each of them only a 50% chance of survival. But if they’ve already each got only a 50% chance of survival, that’s no loss. And it substantially increases the value of survival, because it gets things over with now instead of a month from now.
If I’m wrong in saying that each currently has a 50% chance — if instead, say, Cruz has a 60% chance and Rubio a 40% chance or vice versa — then they can flip an appropriately weighted coin.
Ah, you might ask — but what if Rubio believes that Rubio has a 60% chance and Cruz believes that Cruz has a 60% chance? What then? Answer: Why should Rubio trust his own judgment any more than he trusts Cruz’s, or vice versa? They’re both equally capable of assessing these probabilities. Rubio ought to be able to say: In my opinion, I’ve got a 60% chance to drive Ted out; in Ted’s opinion he’s got a 60% chance to drive me out; the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Now I would like to make a daring prediction. I predict that this coin flip will not happen, and will not even be proposed. But I’m not sure I understand why not.
