Cadidate Standings in Terms of Delegates and Polls

After 33 primaries and caucuses in the 2016 Presidential Election, the race to the nomination is more than halfway done. Leading on the Republican side is Donald Trump with 743 delegates, followed by Ted Cruz with 517, and John Kasich with 143. On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton leads with 1,749 while Bernie Sanders has 1,061 delegates. With just 882 delegates left for the Republicans to distribute and 1,955 delegates for the Democrats, there is still a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding who the nominees will be for each party.

On the Republican side, the nominee must claim 1,237 delegates in order to win on the first ballot. While Trump has been the front runner for most of the race, it is unclear whether he will reach the 1,237 benchmark before the nominating convention in July. As more candidates on the Republican side have dropped out, support for Cruz has increased and so has the number of delegates he has been receiving. Cruz now has the possibility to unseat Trump and claim the nomination for himself if he continues to gain momentum as the last few states vote in the primaries. Cruz's commanding win in Wisconsin on Tuesday showed that he has the capability to handily defeat Trump; in fact, he is the only candidate who has repeatedly been able to do this. Polls from Real Clear Politics show that Trump is beating Cruz by just 5 points nationwide 40% to 35% respectively, while Kasich is in a distant third with 20% (McClatchy/Marist). Kasich has not given up hope on the possibility that he could be the next Republican nominee however. If neither Trump nor Cruz have reached the 1,237 delegates by the convention, Kasich could have the opportunity to win the nomination after the first round of voting at the convention. Though Trump, Cruz, and other leaders in the Republican party have called for Kasich to resign from the race, he continues to stay in, most likely as to counter their extreme ideologies to his more traditional, moderate ones.

On the Democratic side, the nominating process has also stayed competitive long after many political pundits thought it would. Sanders has been able to rise from an unknown candidate to one of the most prominent political figures in just 11 months after announcing his bid for the presidency. While it seemed that Clinton would easily defeat Sanders in the first few races, she has not been able to compete with the amount of grassroots support that young Americans have been showing Sanders. The most recent poll from McClatchy/Marist shows that Sanders is leading Clinton by 2 points, 49% to 47%, respectively. However, other polls show that Clinton is still leading the race over Sanders, anywhere from 6 points to 18 points ahead (Pew Research, Public Policy Polling). While the tightening of polls increases the confidence of Sanders supporters, it is still highly unlikely that he will be able to gain the Democratic nomination before the convention. He trails Clinton by almost 700 delegates with 400 or so of those delegates being Super Delegates. These Super Delegates are leaders of the Democratic party and include representatives from Congress who are likely to continue to support Clinton because she is the establishment candidate on the Democratic side. For Sanders to convince these Super Delegates to shift their support from Clinton he would need a win from a major Democratic state such as New York, which could potentially happen, to show these Super Delegates he has what it takes to win.

Looking forward to the end of the Presidential Primary season it is incredible to see how much has changed since the first votes were cast in Iowa in February. Both fields of candidates have been narrowed down considerably, though it is still unclear who each party's nominee will be. While Trump and Clinton still hold leads over their rivals, the commanding lead they once had has almost evaporated. Polls are ever changing and known to inaccurately predict winners, like Sanders victory in Michigan in March, so they must be carefully analyzed and taken with a grain of salt as the campaigns march forward to the conventions and general election.