Ted Cruz, ladies man

Now that outsiders Senator Ted Cruz and billionaire Donald Trump have emerged as the top two vote getters the argument should shift from who is going to break the Washington Cartel to who is going to break the Washington Cartel AND beat Hillary Clinton in November.

And in that contest Senator Ted Cruz is clearly the best choice because, although we continue to like much of Donald Trump’s message, the messenger has, through his own lack of discipline, damaged himself to the point that we doubt his ability to recover.

According to a March NBC/Wall Street Journal poll 47% of female Republican primary voters cannot see themselves voting for Trump.

Just over half of Republican women said they could support Trump in that NBC/WSJ poll. That's significantly lower than his GOP rivals, but it might be enough for Trump to secure the Republican nomination.

But that's only half the battle. If Trump becomes the nominee, there's another number from that poll he'll have to contend with: 70 percent of women overall have an unfavorable view of him.

"It's not just that people don't like him a little bit — it's that there is such a strong number of strongly unfavorable women," Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson told NPR.

In 2012, Barack Obama bested Mitt Romney by far less -- 55 percent to 44 percent -- among female voters according to NBC reporter Carrie Dann’s analysis.

According to the NBC/WSJ poll Trump's favorability with women overall is a dismal 21 percent positive/ 70 percent negative.

With men, it's 28 percent positive/ 59 percent negative.

And that was before Trump’s undisciplined shoot-from-the-lip comments about punishing women who have an abortion.

"When you are looking at trying to win the White House and you're struggling so much with a majority of the electorate, which is what women represent, it makes it just very difficult to envision a clear path to the White House for someone like Donald Trump who has taken an already difficult situation for the GOP and made it significantly worse," Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson said to NPR.

Don't expect Trump's statements on women to go away anytime soon. They are likely to show up repeatedly in attack ads, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

Asked if they would prefer to see a Democratic president or a Republican president regardless of who the nominees are, 52 percent of female voters chose the Democratic option while 36 percent chose the Republican option. That's a net advantage of 16 percentage points for the Democratic candidate said NBC’s Carrie Dann.

But plug in the names "Hillary Clinton" and "Donald Trump" and the gap gets even wider.

In that hypothetical matchup, just 31 percent of women said they would choose Trump, while 58 percent said they would choose Clinton. That's a net advantage of 27 points for Clinton.

Donald Trump consistently has a 20-odd point gap in support between men and women. A gap he has acknowledged he needs to do something about, but so far has lacked the discipline to address in any meaningful way.

In contrast, Senator Cruz is “an authentic conservative Republican with a discernible government point of view” as establishment Republican wise man Ed Rogers put it.  And, unlike Donald Trump, Ted Cruz has slowly, but surely, expanded his base and built a coalition that is the basis for victory against Hillary Clinton in November.