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Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz is mathematically eliminated from winning the GOP nomination on the first ballot, according to the Associated Press. GOP front-runner Donald Trump is now the only Republican candidate who can clinch the nomination before the GOP convention in July, as there aren’t enough remaining delegates for either Cruz or John Kasich to reach the 1,237 threshold.

Donald Trump has more delegates than any other Republican candidate, but he’ll need a majority — 1,237 — to clinch the GOP nomination for president. Using the controls below, decide how many delegates you think he’ll win in each remaining contest, and see how your projections compare with those of the experts we surveyed.

<p>As we saw in Colorado — and North Dakota, and Louisiana, and elsewhere — Team Cruz is much, much better than Team Trump at understanding and taking advantage of each state’s distinctive primary or caucus rules to maximize its delegate tally.</p>

Republican National Committee member Randy Evans said Wednesday that Donald Trump would likely be able to secure the Republican nomination if he captures anything more than 1,100 delegates, short of the 1,237 delegates needed for a simple majority. "If Donald Trump exceeds 1,100 votes, he will become the nominee even though he may not have 1,237," Evans said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." Evans' comment is good news for Trump if it's a sentiment shared by other RNC members, since Trump is at risk of falling short of a majority of delegates by the time of the convention in July. But...

Despite Complaints, Delegate System Has Given Trump a 22 Percent Bonus NBC. April 11, 2016 BY ARI MELBER Donald Trump blasted the GOP's delegate rules Sunday, saying a "corrupt" system is denying him delegates in states he won. According to a new NBC analysis, however, Trump has benefited far more than Ted Cruz under the party's arcane rules for allocating delegates. Trump now leads the Republican field with 756 delegates — or 45 percent of all delegates awarded to date. Yet he has won about 37 percent of all votes in the primaries, according to the NBC analysis, meaning Trump's...

Donald Trump’s effort to reset his campaign following defeat in Wisconsin showed no signs of paying off this weekend, as a series of technical failures by his campaign set his hopes back even further. From Thursday to Saturday, Trump suffered setbacks in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina and Indiana that raise new doubts about his campaign’s preparedness for the long slog of delegate hunting as the GOP race approaches a possible contested convention. He lost the battle on two fronts. Cruz picked up 28 pledged delegates in Colorado. In the other states, rival campaigns were able to place dozens of...

"And the Northern girls with the way they kiss. They keep their boyfriends warm at night. I wish they all could be California. I wish they all could be California. I wish they all could be California Girls"- (And guy Cali delegates, too.) A big WOW from Cali! Dude, the candidate chooses his/her own delegates!!! LOYALTY matters. Whether it be in business, politics, or friendships, we all desire and respect loyalty. Let's consider the 172 member California Republican Delegation that will be seated in Cleveland for the RNC: "The selection of Presidential Nominating Convention Delegates to the Republican National Convention...

<p>Cruz currently has 517 delegates so he needs to win 720 more (81.6%) of the remaining delegates to reach the 1237 magic number. So Cruz can only afford to lose a maximum of 162 delegates or he is mathematically eliminated.</p>

The rules for how Republican delegates are selected — which differ in every state — could end up turning votes for one candidate into delegates who will support another candidate at the convention. See article for its entirety.

FARGO, N.D. — Ted Cruz’s preferred candidates won the vast majority of convention delegates available in North Dakota over the weekend, taking 18 of 25 slots in the state in another show of organizational strength over Donald Trump. It’s still not clear how loyal all of Cruz’s slate will be if the Republican nomination heads to a contested convention in Cleveland, as several included on it told POLITICO they were only leaning toward Cruz, or simply opposed to Trump. But the result was bad news for Trump, who may need unbound delegates like those in North Dakota to lift him...

On the eve of the Wisconsin primaries, top Republicans are becoming increasingly vocal about their long-held belief that Speaker Paul Ryan will wind up as the nominee, perhaps on the fourth ballot at a chaotic Cleveland convention. One of the nation’s best-wired Republicans, with an enviable prediction record for this cycle, sees a 60 percent chance of a convention deadlock and a 90 percent chance that delegates turn to Ryan — ergo, a 54 percent chance that Ryan, who’ll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee.

Kasich and Cruz quietly work to persuade delegates to break with GOP voters in a contested convention. When South Dakota's Republican activists convened in Pierre to pick their delegates to the Republican national convention, they got an unexpected visitor. Merle Madrid, senior aide to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, had flown in from Columbus to make an appeal: If the convention fails to elect front-runner Donald Trump on the first ballot, consider Kasich on the second — even if the state’s Republican voters sent them there to back Trump or Ted Cruz. Madrid was polite and earnest , but according to...

Nate Silver: When I was filling out my projections, I was a little bit surprised that I had Trump coming up short of 1,237 since I thought I was being fairly optimistic for him in individual states. However, once you account for the facts that (1) there are quite a few uncommitted delegates and (2) Trump isn’t likely to do so well in less populous states west of the Mississippi, which is a fair bit of what’s out there — well then, Trump has to do really well everywhere else.

There are of course conflicting delegate counts. The NYTimes has: Trump 738 Cruz 463 Five Thirty Eight has: Trump 754 Cruz 465 Not sure either is correct. 1) It is not clear that either has yet accounted for Missouri's delegates. Trump stands to gain several more here; 2) There are at least 37 "unpledged" delegates, from Carson, Fiorina, Christie, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands. There may be more, depeding on who has actually "dropped out" vs. "suspended." I'm betting that the Trump campaign (and certainly the Cruz campaign too) has been in touch with every one of these delegates....

The Republican race for the presidential nomination is down to just one man and one number: Donald Trump and 1,237 — the number of delegates required to clinch the nomination. Can Trump win 1,237 delegates by the end of the primary season on June 7? Will he be forced to plunder among the more than 100 unbound or currently uncommitted delegates who will make the trip to Cleveland in order to win on a first ballot at the Republican National Convention? Or are we all but assured of a multi-ballot convention?Any pundit giving confident answers to these questions is full...

Here is a very excellent interactive page showing the Trump and Cruz paths to winning the nomination. There's a short analysis here, but the best thing here is that you can adjust the future percentage of votes for any of the candidates to see how that would theoretically affect the outcome. The money paragraph from NYT political analysts is here: After Tuesday’s contests, no other candidate retains a real chance of capturing the delegates required to win the nomination outright. Mr. Rubio dropped out, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio is too far behind, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas would...

Is a Paulian putsch being planned for the Republican National Convention? Newt Gingrich has warned that Republican leaders have not thought through “how they’re going to handle the convention in Tampa, and how they’re going to handle the Ron Paul forces.” The New York Sun reported that “what Mr. Gingrich seems to be worried about is the delegates that Congressman Paul is winning through his strategy of dealing with state conventions. The former speaker had just come from the convention at Georgia, where … the ‘Ron Paul people’ were out in force.” I have been receiving alarming emails concerning an...

The federal lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in California demands the delegates be freed to "vote their conscience" for presidential nominee at the party's August national convention in Tampa, Fla., rather than being "bound" to vote for a certain candidate, as many state party bylaws require, based on the primary elections and other delegate selection procedures. Courthouse News Service reports at least another 40 additional national convention delegates have asked to join the lawsuit which would bring the total to 160 Delegates. Yet striking down party rules that bind candidates to vote in accordance with the primary...

Ron Paul announced Monday the Texas congressman will not campaign in the states that have yet to vote in the Republican primary. And while Paul insisted that the campaign would continue to amass delegates, the statement -- which referred to the campaign in the past tense... Though the statement is a bit cryptic, it seems to be a message directed mainly at Paul's activist following. The message: Cool it. In recent weeks, Paul supporters have increasingly been making trouble at local Republican Party conventions, even as they've succeeded in gaining delegates in several states. This past weekend, Paul delegates in...

While Ron Paul is still seeking delegates, he has called it quits on the campaign trail. The Houston-area congressman announced this afternoon that he will no longer actively campaign in the remaining primary states, including his home state of Texas. In an email to supporters that also was posted on his campaign web site, Paul explained the decision largely came down to cost. To continue, it would require “many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.” “I hope all supporters of liberty will remain deeply involved – become delegates, win office, and take leadership positions,” he said...