In Thursday night’s GOP debate on CNN, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Ted Cruz treated front-runner Donald Trump like he was the fourth player in a friendly round at one of Trump’s golf courses. This came after the trio each reportedly met separately with Jeb Bush.

Friday morning, Rubio’s spokesperson actually came out and urged the senator’s supporters in Ohio to vote for Kasich. Meanwhile, Cruz has pulled all his campaign ads in Florida. Erik Erickson at TheInsurgent.com lists some other tidbits from the campaign trail:

• Marco Rubio revs up his Florida presence and is nowhere to be found in Illinois, Missouri, and North Carolina.
• The Cruz campaign redirects all its resources to those three states, with Cruz rallies, ad buys, GOTV etc.
• Kasich is going all in in Ohio and ceding Illinois, Missouri, and North Carolina to Cruz. In fact, Kasich suddenly has no events in Illinois, and only one event in Pennsylvania after the Ohio primary.

“In other words,” says Erickson, “Kasich is now only campaigning in Ohio; Rubio is only campaigning in Florida; and Cruz is avoiding events in Florida and Ohio.”

So what gives? For Erikson, the evidence is clear: The three candidates have cut a deal in an effort to stop Donald Trump.

Cruz and Rubio help Kasich beat Trump in Ohio, while Kasich and Cruz help boost Rubio’s chances of beating Trump in Florida. The absence of Rubio and Kasich in the other three states allows Cruz to make a stronger case that voters in those states should treat election day as a one-on-one contest between Cruz and the billionaire.

If Kasich wins Ohio, Rubio wins Florida and Cruz wins North Carolina, Missouri and even comes close in Illinois, America wakes up Wednesday to an entirely different race.

Deal or No Deal?

But is the report of a deal even true? According to the Associated Press, Rubio “says he’s not had any talks or meetings with rivals Ted Cruz or John Kasich to team up to defeat GOP front-runner Donald Trump. He says he’s ‘not open’ to any such talks about joining forces.”

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said Friday his candidate is going to win Ohio without Rubio’s help “just as [Rubio’s] going to lose Florida without our help.” Doesn’t sound terribly cooperative. Could Kasich be eyeing a VP spot on a Trump ticket and wants to stay in Trump’s good graces by not openly conspiring against him?

Cruz laughed when Fox News asked about the alleged deal. “It’s the Washington establishment’s last gasp: ‘Let’s divide things up. Let’s play games,” he said, “It’s real, real simple. How do you beat Donald Trump? You beat him.”

And Cruz may not be blowing smoke. Ohio and Florida are winner-take-all, and while Cruz is running a solid third in both states, it’s extraordinarily unlikely he could win either state at this stage. Meanwhile, North Carolina, Missouri and Illinois are not winner-take-all, and he has a shot of winning one or more of them if Kasich and Rubio clear out of the way. As for Kasich, Ohio is a must win for him, and polls show him in a tight race with Trump. Rubio is do-or-die in Florida, the only state he has a shot of winning next Tuesday. So each of the three men appears to be training all his fire exactly where it makes sense to.

Florida and Ohio

Whether the men huddled together, whether campaign staffers sat down, whether Jeb Bush was a go-between, or whether it’s just an obvious strategy, the bigger question is, “Will it work?”

In Florida’s winner-take-all primary, the RealClear Politics poll average as of Wednesday showed Trump up by 14.7 over Rubio, 39.9 to 25.2, with Cruz at 18.2 and Kasich at 8.6. If even half of the Cruz and Kasich voters in Florida switch to Rubio just to slow Trump, that 14.7 lead virtually disappears. Rubio could also benefit from his strong, Florida-centric debate performance Thursday night. In any event, Marco’s got a battle on his hands.

Things are easier for Kasich in Ohio. The latest Fox News poll shows Kasich up by 5 on Trump, 34 to 29. Cruz follows with 19, Rubio with 7. If Rubio’s supporters heed his campaign’s call to vote for Kasich, the Ohio governor will win the Buckeye state’s 66 delegates by a comfortable margin and deny those same delegates to Trump.

North Carolina, Missouri and Illinois

Of those three states, Cruz leads among the non-Trump bunch in all three. North Carolina may be his best shot, though it depends which poll you’re studying. It’s a closed primary, which stands to help Cruz. The RealClear Politics average shows Trump up by 11.8, but Rubio and Kasich combine for 23.4% of the vote.  If enough of those voters break for Cruz, with an assist from undecideds, Cruz could wipe Trump out there like a sand dune on the Outer Banks. Or not. Trump has pretty well owned the South, and North Carolina may be more of the same next Tuesday

Cruz’s best shot may actually be Missouri. Polling in Missouri has been very limited. One poll from late 2015 showed Cruz ten back. However, Cruz strongly overperformed the polls in neighboring Kansas and Oklahoma; Cruz’s campaign manager is from Missouri; and the non-Trump bunch may coalesce around him since he’s the obvious non-Trump front runner there. If so, the state could be his. Missouri is no longer winner-take-all, but the rules do allow the winner to get an outsized helping of the state’s 52 delegates if he wins by a substantial margin.

Illinois may be toughest because it’s not obvious if Cruz or Kasich is the leading non-Trump candidate. The RealClear Politics average shows Cruz a bit ahead, but Kasich may not throw his support energetically behind Cruz given that Illinois is not winner-take-all and given that Kasich may think he can win Ohio without help from Cruz. In sum, a united anti-Trump effort behind Cruz could cause Trump to lose Illinois, but Cruz may not see sufficient cooperation for that. On the bright side, the polls suggest a 33% ceiling for Trump in Illinois. That leaves him potentially more vulnerable than in North Carolina where some of the polls have Trump well into the 40s.

Super Tuesday 2 is four days away, when all this speculation turns to hard data.