Saturday was a good day for Ted Cruz as he split the four Republican contests held that day with Donald Trump taking the caucuses in Maine and Kansas and winning more delegates than the frontrunner. That gives Cruz some momentum going forward and strengthens his post-Super Tuesday talking point that he is the sole threat to Trump’s grip on the Republican presidential nomination. But while it is one thing for him to claim that he should be the last man standing of the non-Trumps, it is quite another for him to actively seek to knock the other candidates out of the race.

Heading into the March 15 races, the conventional wisdom is that only Marco Rubio has the best chance to keep Trump from winning Florida and only John Kasich can prevent the Donald from taking Ohio. If the goal of the non-Trumps is to prevent the Donald from getting a majority of the delegates and locking up the GOP nomination, then surely their only hope is for each of them to win the states where they have the best chance with as little interference from the others. That means Cruz and Kasich ought to stay out of Florida and Cruz and Rubio ought to leave the field clear for Kasich in Ohio.

But that’s not what Cruz is doing. He’s investing in Florida and seems determined to do as well there as possible. Cruz has virtually no chance of winning the state as the current Real Clear Politics average of polls shows him trailing badly in third with only 12.3 percent behind Trump (44.7 percent) and Rubio (26 percent). Rubio’s chances of catching Trump there are looking as sickly after another bad night as he did at the last debate while suffering from the flu. But if anyone is to stop Trump from gaining all of that state’s crucial 99 delegates that will be awarded on a winner-take-all basis, it is probably Rubio.

But Cruz doesn’t seem to care about that. His main goal right now seems to be to force Rubio out of the race, a position that was endorsed Saturday night by Trump.

Up until recently that seemed like a logical position for those hoping to find an alternative to Trump. With Trump winning pluralities but with the majority of voters in primaries and caucuses voting for someone else, the assumption was that once the race narrowed down to Trump and someone else, that somebody else was bound to win. Cruz seems to still think this theory is true. Given that Trump has consistently underperformed compared to his polling numbers with late-breaking voters voting against him, he might be right.

However, the flaw in that theory is that in the coming weeks the race moves beyond Cruz’s southwestern base and the caucuses that his excellent ground game has won. That means the Texas senator’s prospects don’t look that bright. Trump wasn’t wrong Saturday night when he said that Cruz would seem to be a big underdog against him in Northeast and Midwestern states that have less conservative Republican electorates. Trump is itching for a one-on-one against Cruz precisely because he thinks he can win such a matchup much more easily than if he were facing Rubio or even Kasich alone.

But Cruz believes that once the two relatively moderate Republican candidates are forced out of the race, their voters will rally around him as the only way to beat Trump. That may well be true but given his reputation as the man who shut down the government, it’s possible many of the voters that back Rubio and Kasich won’t embrace him.

That’s quite a gamble since, on its face, it looks more like a bid to solidify his hold on second place than a way to derail Trump. But with Rubio seemingly damaged by his decision to get down into the mud with Trump and Kasich sounding more like a candidate for vice president on Trump’s ticket than a presidential contender recently, Cruz’s belief that he can beat Trump by himself is as likely a theory as any. That’s especially true since Cruz’s strong debate performance last Thursday and his string of victories in recent days.

Yet handing Florida or even Ohio, where Kasich is doing better than Rubio is in his home state, over to Trump merely on the theory that it would winnow the GOP race further seems like a formula for ensuring that the frontrunner winds up winning a majority of delegates long before the Republicans head to Cleveland. No matter which way you look at the problem, Trump has the advantage right now. Unless he is denied the lion’s share of the delegates in the remaining primaries, it will be difficult to deny him the nomination. It’s far too late to take action to ensure that Trump will not be able to win in a divided field. And with Rubio already far behind Trump, it may not make any difference how well Cruz does in the Sunshine State.

Despite his victories, Trump is not yet on a clear path to get a majority of delegates at the GOP convention. Yet by allowing Trump to make a large delegate haul on March 15, Cruz could be handing Trump a windfall of delegates that will render a subsequent one-on-one matchup largely moot. Up until now, Cruz has run a much smarter race than most of his many critics thought he would. It’s also true that a great many Republicans who would have never thought of voting for him may now be forced to do so if one or both of the other non-Trumps are forced out. But if Cruz allows Trump to achieve his quest of winning a majority of delegates, it won’t matter that he ran a strong second.