The headline is misleading. Cruz needs 87% of the remaining delegates to win on the first ballot. The number he’d need to win a subsequent ballot depends on how the delegates committed to other candidates break after the first ballot.
"Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) would need 87% of remaining primary voters to win the nomination.
It might be time for Ted Cruz to drop out and endorse Donald J. Trump?"
You are thinking about the Republican Convention in July.
Jim Hoft is talking about the remainder of the Primary votes in the rest of the States that have not voted.
Cruz would get many of Trump’s delegates on the 2nd ballot, because he’s done the groundwork to get Cruz supporters in place as delegates. So, even though those delegates (most of them) are bound to Trump on the first ballot, they could change over and vote Cruz on the 2nd ballot. In fact, North Carolina delegates are ALL unbound, so they could all vote however they want on the FIRST ballot, even though Trump won the state.
Granted, there could be delegates in other states who are bound to Cruz on the first ballot but would switch to Trump on the 2nd, but Cruz has done much more work on getting his people elected as delegates.
If there’s only 2 names on the first ballot (nobody else having gotten 8 states), why would there be a second ballot? Does the exact wording of the rules require an majority of votes (ignoring disqualified “none of the above” votes), or a vote count equal to a majority of delegates regardless of how many cast a valid vote?