The US Political Race Is Almost Over

Published 6 May 2016 | 339 words | Categories: Politics

tl;dr

Trump running unopposed. Clinton and Sanders still fighting for their nomination.

What happened?

This week, Ted Cruz dropped out of the race. (May 3rd) The very next day, John Kasich suspended his campaign in a last-minute decision. (May 4th) Both were disappointed by the results coming out of Indiana's primary. Neither had any mathematical chance of securing enough delegates to become the Republican nominee.

This leaves Donald Trump as the last man standing on the Republican side. Originally given a 1% chance at securing the nomination, he somehow defeated 16 other Republicans and now has a 99% chance of being the nominee. After all, he's running unopposed. Who's going to beat him?

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are both a ways off from securing the Democrat nomination.

What's next for the Republicans

Of the 9 states remaining, there are 445 delegates up for grabs. 5 states are winner-takes-all (315 delegates).

Since Trump is the only option, he's going to win the winner-takes-all states. If he only gains delegates there, that gives him 1383 delegates out of the 1237 required to win the nomination.

Upcoming elections:

What's next for the Democrats

933 delegates are available from the next 13 elections. 180 superdelegates are available. Since superdelegates are unbound until the convention (all 712 of them) I don't think they really count.

2382 delegates are needed to become the Democratic nominee. Clinton has 1683 and Sanders has 1362.

If Sanders wins all 933 delegates, that gives him 2295 delegates total. If Clinton gets 100%, that puts her at 2616. Superdelegates make the final count tricky, so technically both Sanders and Clinton could win the nomination.

Upcoming elections:

Potential complications

Trump's Taco Bowl fiesta fiasco could go south. The media has been covering it nonstop since the post went up. (But it gathered 575,000 shares and 770,000 likes within 24 hours, so I doubt it'll hurt him.)

Hillary Clinton may be interviewed by the FBI very soon. We still don't know when they'll finish their investigation.

Delegate totals are subject to change for the Democrat side.

 


Back To Top