Horowitz’s interpretation of the numbers is slightly different than mine, but the fact remains: We are looking at a fight that lasts into mid May at least, and it is more likely with every day that we last past June 7th.
There are 303 delegates available on June 7th. To lock up the nomination (by winning all 303 which is HIGHLY unlikely due to CA and NM rules) on June 7th, you have to have 934 delegates by June 6th.
Right now I have Trump at 696 (some folks have him 10 points lower.) That means he has to get 238 delegates before June 7th in order to have a chance (again statistically small chance) of winning it all using June 7th delegates. Or, he has to win 38% of the delegates available between now and June7th (620) to even have a shot of winning the nomination with a sweep of June 7th states.
Here is why that is unlikely:
Of the states left before June 7th, only 2 are straight winner take all states: Delaware with 16 delegates and Nebraska with 36. All of the others are either proportional or do a mix of allocations between congressional districts and statewide. What does that mean? It means that the chances of taking all of the delegates in states like NY (95) or PA (71) are incredible low. Trump is far more likely to lose some congressional district delegates in states like Arizona, Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, Indiana, and Washington. Rhode Island (19) and Oregon (28) are straight proportional so there’s no way he sweeps those two. Utah is also straight proportional but it has a 50% winner take all rule. If you think Trump is going to take 50% of the vote in Utah well…
Again, what does that mean? It means that Trump hitting his magic number of 934 delegates prior to June 7 is HIGHLY unlikely. And remember, that 934-to-win-with-June 7th figure relies on you winning every single delegate on June 7th. That’s statistically improbably since New Mexico (24) is a proportional allocation state and CA (172) has 159 delegates that are tied to individual Congressional districts.
FReeper formerly known as Brothers4thID