The math begins wrong because Trump has 755 delegates as reported from the individual SOS and updated religiously by GreenPapers the last 16 years.
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R
THE DELEGATE RACE MATH ~ 35% of the primary election race remains.
Trump won 7,825,264 votes -—> 755 delegates.
T.Cruz won 5,737,119 votes —-> 465 delegates.
~~Countdown to 1237 delegates~~
There are 895 hard delegates remaining of which some are free/soft delegates. Some delegates have already been won by other candidates. We have 808 new delegates ‘up for grabs’ in the upcoming races.
Donald Trump: 755 delegates won. He must win 482 more delegates to reach 1237. That is 59% of the 808 remaining hard delegates. He may lose 397 more delegates & still win 1237.
Ted Cruz: 465 delegates won. He must win 772 more delegates to reach 1237. That is 96% of the 808 remaining hard delegates. He may lose 36 more delegates & still win 1237.
The current rules set a goal of reaching a simple majority of the delegates combined with a majority win of eight state delegations. When no candidate earns the majority of delegates, the game changes.
You are right. Cruz needs 96% of the remaining delegates to reach 1237. Which is NOT going to happen. Cruz knows this. He is a shameless political hack. He is never going to be preznit.
Here’s another layout by the NYTimes. Don’t forget that Rubio has 171 an Kasich
has 143 and a few more scattered amongst the others.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/primary-calendar-and-results.html?_r=0
Need to up the Trump delegate count based on tonight’s certification of Missouri results.