AP: Cruz can’t win the nomination outright and it doesn’t look great for Trump either

The Assoicated Press has done their own analysis of the delegate math needed to win the GOP nomination and have concluded that Cruz can’t win it outright even if he were to win the remaining six winner-take-all states.

But they also say that Trump still isn’t doing well enough to win it either, even though it is possible for him to do better.

The AP says the current delegate count is this:


Trump.....661
Cruz......406
Kasich....142

 
Here’s the AP’s rationale for Trump needing to do better in order to win outright:

Trump has won 47 percent of the delegates awarded so far, according to the Associated Press delegate count. That’s not good enough — it takes a majority of delegates to win the nomination, according to party rules.

Trump needs to win 54 percent of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination by the time the primary season ends on June 7.

He could reach the goal by winning most of the remaining states that award all of their delegates to the winner — and doing well in the other states. The next winner-take-all state is Arizona on Tuesday, with 58 delegates at stake.

And here’s why the say Cruz can’t win it based on their analysis:

Cruz said Tuesday night that he can still clinch the nomination by the time the primaries are over. But he can’t, according to the AP analysis, unless all the other candidates drop out.

Cruz needs to win 78 percent of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination before the convention.

Even if Cruz won all of the remaining winner-take-all states — there are only six more — he couldn’t reach the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the convention.

After Tuesday’s contests, Cruz has won just 29 percent of the delegates awarded so far.

And here’s how the AP says it gets to a contested convention and what happens at that point:

Cruz and Kasich are now fighting to keep Trump from reaching 1,237 delegates. If they are successful, no one would go to the convention with a majority and the convention would be contested.

Under GOP rules, delegates are required to vote for the candidate who won them on the first ballot at the convention. But if no one gets a majority on the first ballot, most state parties have rules that allow their delegates to become free agents, free to support the candidate of their choice.

If the AP is right about Cruz and no one ends up winning the nomination outright, then the Republican National Convention in Cleveland will be one huge spectacle. The unbound delegates will be the most popular people in the first round of voting but if no one wins it after the first vote, then it looks like all bets are off.


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