Optics count in politics as they aid momentum, which Trump certainly has following on from his massive win in New York. Thus a 100+ delegate haul Tuesday, with a win in all five states on offer, would add to Trumps "inevitability" effect. To make this even more apparent, a 102 delegate haul (104 would be optimal as some media give Trump **845 delegates) would give Trump a total of 949
Although New Jersey is not voting until June 7th, if anything is certain in politics it is that its 51 delegate winner take all haul will go to Trump. The optics thus after Tuesday in reality are 949+51=1000.
Frankly the near certainty of West Virginia's 34 delegates can be added to that so at 1034 it is perfectly clear Trump will be the nominee barring some catastrophe before California votes.
Including New Jersey and West Virginia in Tuesdays total Trump needs 237 bound delegates (not including the number he will certainly get from Pennsylvania) to be assured of the nomination on the first ballot. There is, realistically, a pool of 359
delegates from the remaining primary states of Indiana, West Virginia, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and of course California.
These are all, to some degree proportional either across the entire state or winner take all state plus winner of congressional districts thus Trump is guaranteed of a level of delegates from all of them.
I have not included Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota as they would, at this point, most likely be solid for Cruz. Nobody knows how the six "Trump states" will deliver their delegate numbers for him but, as per my analysis below based on current polling in Indiana and California and giving Trump a 50/50 split in Oregon/Washington/New Mexico it seems reasonable to conclude Trump will pass the 1237 mark comfortably.
And that's without adding in Pennsylvania's unbound delegates plus whatever will be for him from the other unbound delegates particularly from Guam/Virgin Islands/American Samoa.
The other aspect of note on Tuesday is
Rhode Island's unusual proportional system. If all three candidates receive more than 10% of the vote they will get one delegate each from the three allocated across the two congressional districts unless a candidate gets 67% of the vote in a CD at which point he will get 2 delegates there.
The states winner also gets a proportional delegate assign based on his total share of the overall vote. Thus although Trump is leading in the polls there he may only get, at most 9 delegates.
Apart from the unlikely event of Trump getting 67% if Cruz goes below 10% statewide he will get no delegates and Trump would possibly get up to 12 or so. Thus Trump supporters should keep an eye on Cruz's tally as at this stage every delegate counts.
WD="Withdrawn" i.e. delegates bound to Rubio, Carson, Huckabee, Fiorina, Paul
UA="Unavailable' i.e. unbound delegates like those from Guam and a smattering of other states and areas. For my analysis I have assigned 35 of Pennsylvania's to Trump plus 2 form "Unbound" to bring his current total to 847 as per the Green Papers analysis
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