Donald Trump leads in the only recent public poll of Indiana, and he leads big in California, in all regions. If these numbers hold up, the odds are in Trump’s favor in his effort to secure 1,237 bound delegates before the Cleveland convention.
Indiana (57 delegates, Winner-take-all)
Trump leads Ted Cruz 37 percent to 31 percent according to a WTHR poll (via HotAir). The local outlet has only announced the toplines, and has also teased this detail: “When you drill down into the numbers into core Republicans, which we will do for you tonight on Eyewitness News, it makes this race a virtual tie between Trump and Cruz.”
A virtual tie is what Politico found when it peeked into some internal polls.
If the polls are showing a virtual tie, with Kasich in distant third, that suggests that Indiana is prime territory for the NeverTrumpers to coalesce behind one candidate, as they did in Ohio and Wisconsin. If Trump really leads Indiana by 6 points, as WTHR’s topline numbers suggest, then Trump could clinch the nomination on June 7, when California and other states vote.
California (172 delegates, mostly by congressional district)
California is the other big question mark along with Indiana. The state votes on June 7, the last day of primary voting. One recent poll, by CBS and YouGov, shows Trump with a massive 18-point lead. Now, winning California isn’t enough for Trump to get the nomination. He needs to win a large majority of the congressional districts. Well, this poll suggests he will.
While California’s congressional districts are very diverse — economically, racially, politically, ideologically — an 18-point statewide win suggests strength in every corner of the state. And 18 points is the margin in another poll released this week.
The more recent poll, from Sacramento’s Capitol Weekly, broke California into 10 regions. Trump won all 10 regions.
That indicates that California could look like the other WTA-by-congressional district states, in which the statewide winner walked away with 75 percent to 100 percent of the delegates.
Trump’s path to 1,237
If these polls — whose methodology and sample are more suspect than most polls we’ve parsed — are correct, then Trump is probably on path to 1,237 bound delegates.
Here’s the math on that.
Today, he has 845 bound delegates.
April 26: On Tuesday, he is poised to do well, likely winning more than 100 delegates. About 105 April 26 delegates is a fair guess, leaving him at 950 delegates.
May 3: If Trump wins Indiana, he will have 1,007 delegates.
May 10: West Virginia is a Trump-friendly state, and he could easily carry 27 of the directly-elected delegates plus the 3 bound delegates awarded to the statewide winner, leaving him at 1,037.
May 17: Oregon isn’t so Trump-friendly, but it’s proportional, so he could easily do okay and pick up 10 delegates (leaving him at 1,047).
May 24: Washington has 44 delegates, allocated proportionally and by congressional district. A bad day here gives him 5 delegates (1,052).
June 7: Trump is the favorite in New Jersey, which is winner take all, putting him at 1,103. He’ll probably lose Montana and South Dakota (also WTA). New Mexico, if Trump has a bad showing, will give him about 9 delegates (1,112).
So in California, Trump would need 125 delegates. That’s likely if he wins every region and carries the state by 18 points.
On the other hand, if Trump loses Indiana, he would need to outperform all my above guesses in order to get to 1,237.
Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
