The Math: Its Over – Trump Vs. Clinton in the General Election

Unless something drastic happens, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will win their respective nominations with sufficient delegates. There will be no brokered conventions, each of them will win outright.  This is the math:

Trump

Trump now has 661 delegates (Missouri is still squirrelly…). He needs 1237 to win the nomination outright.  Since 1141 delegates remaining this means he has to pull about 50% of the remaining delegates.  This does not mean 50% of the vote, just 50% of the delegates.

Of the 19 remaining states, 14 of them are either “winner take all” or “winner take most.”  With this in mind, if Trump wins 7-9 of the “winner take all/most” states (depending on which ones) and takes a reasonable share in the 4 remaining proportional states, he should win the nomination outright. In theory, he could lose a majority of the remaining states and still win the nomination outright.

We believe this is an easy lift for Trump.

Cruz would need to win about 75% of the remaining delegates. This means he would have to win 12-14 of the remaining “winner take all/most” states and do very well in the proportional states. This is not likely to happen unless Trump has a major meltdown of some kind.

Kasich would need 97% of the remaining delegates.  This is statistically impossible, unless both Trump and Cruz get hit by a bus.

Clinton

If you assume the superdelegates are reliable, then Mrs. Clinton only needs 33% of the remaining 2346 delegates to get to 2383 delegates needed to win the nomination outright.  With 53% of the remainder, she will win regardless of the superdelegates.

We believe this is a piece of cake for Mrs. Clinton. She won over 60% of the delegates today.  But even with a major meltdown, the math says Hillary would likely still win the nomination.  

Bernie’s only chance will be if Hillary does have a meltdown, to the point where her superdelegates abandon her. Then a brokered convention may very well give him the nod, but this is a 1 in 100 chance.

I’m sure the campaigns are going through these numbers with a fine-toothed comb, and wargaming every possibility.

But in our opinion this is over.