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Straightforward mathematical path to elimination for Cruz v Trump
Posted April 7, 2016 at 4:33:06 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
According to Politico's delegate counter there are 882 delegates left.

If this is true, here is the delegate math to elimination:
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.

Trump currently has 743 delegates so he needs to win 494 more (56%) of the remaining delegates to reach the 1237 magic number. So Trump can afford to lose up to 388 delegates without being mathematically eliminated.
Fact Cruz has lost delegates at a much higher rate than Trump throughout this primary.

It appears to me that Cruz is more than twice as likely as Trump to be mathematically eliminated.
[Trump will take 98 in NY state, and *at least* 64 more in California, and it's buh-bye Teddy-boy]

Except “elimination” isn’t “elimination” it is simply taking to game into round two.

Cruz has been working the delegate ground game and Trump has not. If Cruz wins 388 + 1 more delegate then Trump is toast. The Trump campaign is in disarray. If Trump can reach the 1237, good for him... he wins. If he doesn’t, he has no fall back plan. Really poor campaign planning on his part.

If Trump is half as good at the deal as he thinks he is, he would make the deal now. If he lets Cruz win more delegates then it will reach a point where Cruz has no motive to deal because Trump will have burned the bridges and have nothing to offer. The time to make a deal is right now before it is certain which strategy will prevail.