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Thursday, March 17, 2016

The Silly Scenarios That Trump Won't Win

The coverage of the GOP race is focused almost entirely at the moment on who "has a path" to the nomination.  The bulk of today's coverage says that Trump is not doing well enough to get to a majority and that Cruz has no chance at all.  There's going to be a decision at the convention after the first ballot.  At least that's what all these analysts say.

The coverage is nonsense.  Trump has a near lock on the nomination.  Here's the numbers.

1.  Trump has 673 delegates at the moment.  He needs another 500 to get to the majority.

2.  There are 72 uncommitted delegates chosen so far, and there are about another 70 delegates not yet chosen from the states that have already voted.  Trump should get many of those 142 delegate votes.

3.  There are roughly 180 delegates who were chosen for candidates who have suspended their campaigns (mostly Rubio).  Most of these people are supposed still to vote for the candidates who dropped out, but there is no reason why they cannot change their votes to one of the remaining candidates.  Most likely, Trump will get a bunch of these delegates as well.

4.  If Trump only gets one third of these 342 votes (from 2 and 3 above) he will have 787 votes. 

5.  There are 948 delegates left to be chosen from states that have yet to hold their primaries or caucuses.  Trump needs roughly 450 of these votes or less than half.  The remaining states, however, include the following:

       a.  Arizona -- 58 delegates -- winner take all -- illegal immigration ground zero -- Trump ahead by double digits in polling.
       b.  New York -- 95 delegates -- proportional -- Trump's home state -- Even if Trump were not to win, he would still get at least 40 delegates.
       c.  New Jersey -- 51 delegates -- winner take all -- polling shows this to be one of the strongest Trump states in the country.
       d.  Pennsylvania -- 71 delegates -- modified winner take all since some are elected by congressional district -- Many districts are a lock for Trump and he leads statewide in sparse polling

From just these four states, Trump is likely to get another 200 delegates at a minimum.  That leaves him only 250 votes short with 670 more to be chosen.  Trump need only continue at his current pace in these other states to clinch the nomination.

The key here is that nearly all the "expert" analyses in the media fail to consider three things:  first, the uncommitted delegates already chosen; second, the remaining delegates still to be chosen from the states that have already voted; and third, the fact that delegates chosen for candidates who dropped out can easily switch and their votes will be counted.  And remember, I did not even mention that Trump leads the polling in California which will select 172 dekegates on a modified winner take all basis.

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