The Campaign Trail 2016: Special Edition: Who still can win?

We are now essentially half way through the presidential primary nomination process and supporters of various candidates still in the 2016 presidential campaigns keep stating that their candidate can still win their respective party's nomination without a brokered convention. But how many of these are actually realistic and how many are just pie in the sky dreams?

This is in no way meant to discourage anyone from voting for their candidate of choice, one should always, no matter what the odds, vote for the the candidate they believe can best fulfill the office of president, anything less is irresponsible voting.

The Republicans require 1,237 delegates to win the nomination and there are still 1061 delegates up for grabs. Otherwise the convention becomes brokered.

Ohio Governor John Kasich is the last of the governors left in the Republican race. He currently has 143 delegates and absolutely no chance to win the primary. Even if he wins every single delegate remaining, he misses the 1,237 mark.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is the last of the senators left in the Republican race. He currently has 411 delegates. He still stands a chance of winning the Republican primary, but not a very good chance. He is 262 delegates behind the front runner. Enough delegates remain that he can win the primary but the odds are against him. Based on his past performance he won't catch up to the front runner let alone make it to 1,237. There hasn't been a contest since Rubio dropped out but his numbers weren't high enough to push Cruz to the top spot in many of the contests. However, he can't be ruled out yet.

New York Billionaire Donald Trump is the current front runner with 673 delegates right now. He still stands a chance of winning the Republican primary. However at this point it is still questionable whether Trump can get to the required delegate number. He has a better chance of actually winning the nomination via the voters than anyone else left in the Republican primaries but the loss of a few key states could put victory just out of his grasp. He definitely can't be ruled out of winning but it is also not a sure thing either.

The Democrats require 2,383 delegates to win the nomination and there are still 2,308 delegates available.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has 825 delegates from the voters and 26 superdelegates. It is important to remember that superdelegates are not bound to a candidate and although 26 are currently pledged to support Sanders, they can be changed at any time before being committed at the Democratic National Convention in July. It is still possible for Sanders to win the Democratic primary but not likely. Based on his past performance he won't gain enough delegates to make the total even with more superdelegates pledged to him. Democrats award their delegates proportionally, so Sanders needs to do more than just win a state, but he needs to win each one by a large margin to get the delegates. While he can't be ruled out of winning, the odds are very much against him at this point.

Former New York Senator and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has 1,139 delegates from the voters and 467 superdelegates. It is important to remember that superdelegates are not bound to a candidate and although 467 are currently pledged to support Clinton, they can be changed at any time before being committed at the Democratic National Convention in July. Clinton is the safe bet for winning the Democratic primary. Not counting superdelegates Clinton is 52 delegates short of the half way mark and the Democrats are half way through the primaries. Based on her past performance she can still get to the final mark although she may need some of those superdelegates to throw her over.