No candidate in recent memory has racked up endorsements from the athletic world like Trump  — by International Business Times' count he's locked up at least 36 people from pro sports, either with full endorsements or public comments that skated right up to the edge of an endorsement. And the names are formidable.

This unmatched support from the sporting world is the result of a confluence of factors working in Trump's favor, including the obvious facts that he has connections to the sports celebrity circuit and has long courted stars at his golf resorts. But sports and politics experts also point out that his brand of blustery machismo has appeal for athletes raised in locker rooms, and that he has largely racked up endorsements from people who already fit Trump's largest demographic — angry white men.

Here's a small sampling of Trump's sports supporters, with help from lists compiled by USA Today's For The Win and the Washington Post: Knight, Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, UFC head Dana White, retired football coach Lou Holtz, Nascar CEO Brian France, NFL legend Mike Ditka, retired MLB player Johnny Damon, retired NBA player Dennis Rodman, retired boxer Mike Tyson, golfer John Daly and wrestler Hulk Hogan. 

As Trump turns to the general election, he could lean even more on his stable of sports stars to energize his supporters. "[Athlete endorsements are] helpful in terms of legitimizing, particularly with his base voter, white working-class voters, and white working -class voters love sports," said Ford O’Connell, a political analyst and Republican strategist who worked on the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign.  

Who knows what role, if any, sports-related endorsers will play come the general election, O’Connell said. At the very least, they bring media attention, something on which Trump has built his campaign.

"If it brings you one more vote, then it's helpful," O’Connell said. 

Read more from Tim Marcin at the International Business Times

A growing sense of desperation from establishment Republicans to stop front-runner Donald Trump from winning the party’s nomination has been simmering for months. But it may be too little, too late for the businessman’s competition as the number of delegates up for grabs winnows in the primary season's final stretch and Trump looks to polish off his lead with wins in several delegate-rich states over the next two months.

Some Republicans have argued recently that Trump’s window to secure the 1,237 delegates necessary to clinch the party’s nomination outright has closed, but the math behind that rationale paints a different picture. Trump, who needs roughly 392 delegates to lock up the nomination and avoid a contested convention — assuming the party establishment doesn't change rules at the last minute to unbind delegates and allow them to vote for whomever they want — has a very narrow path forward to outright beat Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

“Trump is the only one who can mathematically win on the first ballot,” Ford O’Connell, who worked on Arizona Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, said. “Cruz and Kasich are mathematically eliminated."

“After Indiana and tomorrow we are really looking at Donald needing to clean up in California and New Jersey,” O’Connell said. “The problem is in May; the states in May, after Indiana, are not that favorable to Trump.”

Read more from Clark Mindock at International Business Times

Donald Trump will tell anyone with ears that he's inspiring Americans everywhere, drawing record crowds and voter turnouts, and that the wave will keep on rolling through victory in November. Following a slew of Super Tuesday wins, the undisputed front-runner boasted in a news conference at a Florida resort he owns: "I will say this, look: We have expanded the Republican Party," before adding, "Look, I’m a unifier."

Trump has previously proclaimed that he'll square off with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the general election and it will draw "the greatest turnout in history." But for all his typical bluster, there is some truth to Trump's claims. 

Trump has recorded more total votes through Super Tuesday than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney did on his way to the nomination in 2012, despite Romney having the benefit of seven additional states voting through Super Tuesday that year. And when comparing the states that have already voted in the 2016 GOP primaries and caucuses with the corresponding 2012 results, the gap between Trump and Romney widens considerably. Further anecdotal evidence and polls also suggest that Trump could be pulling in voters not typically aligned with the Republican Party. While it's still a long way until November, through Super Tuesday, Trump's signature brand of braggadocio seems to have inspired thousands to get out and vote for him, which can only be a good sign for his chances in a general election. 

Trump is "bringing in some people," said Ford O’Connell, a political analyst and Republican strategist who worked on the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign. "He is cobbling together a group of people we haven't seen in some time." 

Read more from Tim Marcin at International Business Times

With Super Tuesday returns coming in, Republican leaders are doing the same thing as everyone else — waiting to see if, or more likely, how thoroughly, businessman Donald Trump trounces the rest of the GOP field. And for those elected officials waiting to decide their endorsements, Tuesday's results could provide valuable data to help calculate if any path forward remains for the so-called establishment to stop Trump from winning the nomination.

Endorsements have typically been a reliable predictor for nominations, under the assumption that politicians want to go with a winner and help steer a candidate to the top. This year, however, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is leading in endorsements from fellow officeholders, but has yet to win a single state.

How Super Tuesday shakes out could shift the converstation, political analysts said. And in a race where endorsements have lacked clout so far, Trump — a brash outsider who has only recently gained some backers after being scorned or at best tolerated by the party — could be the sole candidate to pick up undecided Republican leaders. 

"The more Trump wins, psychologically, the easier it is to bring him into this tent," said Ford O’Connell, a political analyst and Republican strategist who worked on the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign. 

"It really depends on what happens today," O'Connell said. "Nothing in this cycle has gone according to script."

Read more from Tim Marchin at International Business Times

Ever since Donald Trump began his romp through the 2016 campaign, Republican angst has ratcheted ever higher with fear that if he became the party's nominee, the real estate billionaire could reshape the GOP (if he won the White House) or cost it not only the presidency but the Senate (if he lost). Pundits and party elders have proclaimed repeatedly that “the Republican establishment” needs to coalesce around a single candidate capable of stopping the front-runner.

That's an easy prescription. But who is that GOP establishment, and how would they persuade competing candidates to drop out?

After poor showings in the first four contests — and plenty of quoted sources, anonymous and otherwise, saying he needed to get hot or go home — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush suspended his campaign. The party appeared ready to rally around Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; he began to pick up endorsements. But billionaire financier Stanley Druckenmiller stepped in and said he would support Ohio Gov. John Kasich — the only other candidate left in the so-called establishment lane. And then New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie endorsed Trump. So much for the long-held belief that, especially in the GOP, "the party decides." 

The "establishment" is, generally, an umbrella term used to describe people engaged in the political process and who support traditional Republican values like fiscal conservatism and limited government. That can include several groups: major donors who have funded GOP candidates or super PACs, Republican activists and strategists, among others.

Others disagree. “I don’t know who’s going to have clout on John Kasich except potentially Marco Rubio trying to make a backdoor [agreement] with him,” Ford O’Connell, a top political strategist on the 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain, a former Arizona senator, told IBT.

Read more form Clark Mindock at International Business Times

As the campaigns of the remaining Republican U.S. presidential candidates have descended upon Nevada this week, the battle for the state’s rural caucusgoers has played an increasingly prominent role for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Hoping to pick up what is seen as a population with a libertarian streak in the northern part of the state, Cruz is using the controversial issue of federal and state land rights to convince voters he is the true and dedicated enemy of big government, a hallmark of both his tenure in the Senate and his candidacy.

Cruz’s plan to restore ownership of a massive amount of federally owned land in Nevada to the state’s citizens is in stark contrast with rival candidate Donald Trump’s proposals. Unlike Cruz — and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio — the billionaire has said he doesn’t trust states to manage their land responsibly. The strategy to pull in rural caucus participants who are passionate about this issue could narrow a polling gap and help Cruz beat Rubio — and perhaps even Trump.

“I think that the land rights issue could be useful to Cruz in Nevada just to try to find a way to at least get second place and possibly win,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican political analyst who worked as a strategist on Arizona Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. O’Connell, citing the time he’s spent working on campaigns in the Silver State, speculated that the energy Cruz could generate with the land issue could potentially tip the scales in his favor in parts of the state. “It’s a bigger issue in northern Nevada,” he added.

Read more from Clark Mindock at International Business Times

If Jeb Bush’s most loyal supporters were told last year the former Florida governor would be out of the 2016 U.S. presidential race by February, they most likely would have laughed out loud. Now, the prospect of not only seeing the Republican nomination go to billionaire businessman Donald Trump but also losing the candidate they believed would help the GOP retake the White House has set many of them back on their heels.

Within hours of Bush dropping out of the presidential race Saturday night, many outlets reported that some of his big donors were switching their support to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. As the presidential-nomination season heads toward Super Tuesday (March 1) with Trump looking stronger than ever, the establishment wing of the Republican Party is facing an increasingly fraught choice: either resign themselves to the New York real estate mogul or line up behind an alternative.

Although Rubio may appear to be a natural fit for big campaign contributors hoping to stop Trump in his tracks, Bush backers and GOP strategists say a sense of loyalty and the rivalry between the two Sunshine State politicians could make supporters think twice when choosing another 2016 presidential campaign to help finance.

“Their focus was, ‘How do you clear out the mainstream lane for Jeb Bush?’,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who advised U.S. Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “The person who was hit most by Right to Rise was Rubio.”

Read more from Abigail Abrams at Independent Business Times

While Florida Sen. Marco Rubio seemed ready to claim the mainstream lane of the Republican presidential race Monday night, the GOP establishment vote likely won’t be locked down until at least one more state holds its nominating contest.

The Florida senator has seen an increase in support from mainstream donors and elected officials in recent weeks, but GOP strategists and early state party members said they expect the establishment wing of the Republican Party to hold off on choosing a candidate until the New Hampshire primary, which is likely to force several moderate candidates to drop out naturally. If the Granite State contest does not winnow the field as expected, then the Republican establishment will likely resort to behind-the-scenes discussions and financial pressure to help unite around a candidate soon after.

But Rubio likely needs the continued momentum of another top primary finish for party elites to anoint him as their choice. After all, the establishment has been hoping he will do well for months, and it needs something to build on.

“A lot of this is going to fall on the shoulders on Marco Rubio,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who worked for Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid. “What will happen is if Rubio does well in New Hampshire, in terms of folks like Bush, Kasich, they will feel a pressure to drop out.”

“There will be whispers in the party, in the media,” O’Connell said, referring to pressure for candidates to suspend their campaigns. “That may well occur after New Hampshire, particularly if some candidates don’t do as well.”

That kind of pressure must be handled delicately, though. “Trying to tell the candidate straight up is not the best option. It has to come from someone who you respect or a group of people who you respect,” O’Connell added.

Even for someone like Bush with cash to burn, donors will not stick around forever. O’Connell, the Republican strategist, said big donors are often the ones pushing their candidate to suspend the campaign. These pushes can come from the donor’s own self-interest, or as pressure from friends who are donors to succeeding candidates.

Read more from Abigail Abrams at International Business Times

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie plans on doing Friday exactly what he’s been doing for months now: holding a town hall meeting in New Hampshire and speaking to and with his supporters there. His bid for the White House has put an emphasis on such events, where he is skilled from years of practice in his home state.

Christie has been largely discounted in the Republican 2016 presidential race so far, but his all-in, personal approach in the Granite State, coupled with the focus he’s placed on national security and terrorism, seems at last to be paying off. While still recovering from a local transportation scandal that made national headlines, he's been steadily rising in the polls and racking up endorsements. But the fact that his surge has invited attacks from front-runner Donald Trump may be the best indicator of his progress.

But, there’s another way to tell he’s doing well, aside from favorability polls. As Christie has seen his stock rise in New Hampshire, Trump has now turned his sights on New Jersey's governor. Revisiting the “Bridgegate” debate, Trump has recently been telling supporters at rallies that Christie knew about the traffic closure as it happened.

“You know that he is doing well because Donald Trump is starting to say he’s guilty on the bridge,” said Ford O’Connell, a former adviser for Republican Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign who is unaffiliated with a 2016 race.

Christie’s potential return to grace can be compared to McCain in 2008, when the Arizona senator won New Hampshire after months of poor polls, O’Connell opined. In that cycle, McCain was widely viewed as the front-runner going in, but he dropped dramatically in the polls in 2007 because of his support for adding troops to the Iraq War. He eventually won the nomination. “There are some similarities in the sense that the path Christie is taking, he started out as one of the top two then he got slimed with ‘Bridgegate’… and now he’s on his resurgence.”

Christie’s rebound can be attributed to several additional factors, political analysts and observers said. New Hampshire prides itself as being a state that thinks independently and values one-on-one interaction between presidential hopefuls and voters.

Read more from Clark Mindock at International Business Times

The fluctuating race for the Republican presidential nomination has seen poll numbers rise and fall rise after each debate, prompting candidates' campaigns to draft a list of demands for greater control in future debates, then abandoning those demands before continuing to complain about supposed unfairnesses in these events. Although two candidates have maintained lofty polling positions, it's still technically a toss-up, something that has intrigued potential voters, as evidenced by record-setting TV viewership.

But as each GOP candidate looks to capitalize on the attention that comes with the spotlight of a presidential debate -- such as Tuesday night's, the fourth GOP debate --political analysts said it's the element of uncertainty coupled with the wide GOP field and the party’s desire to take back the White House that is likely to keep viewers tuning in as the campaign season proceeds.

“Here’s what keeps Republicans interested is that they want to win in 2016, and they don’t know which one of these guys or gal is going to win,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said. “The fact that we don’t who’s going to win is going to keep people watching.”

Read more from Abigail Abrams at International Business Times