If Democrats and Republicans were holding their national primaries 12 days from now, on Feb. 1, we could predict each party’s nominee with relative confidence. …
However, we are not holding a national primary.
The system proceeds state by state, over the course of several months, setting up a process where what happens in earlier states affects outcomes in subsequent states.
Real understanding of nomination dynamics also requires an appreciation of how the voting process interacts with each party’s delegate selection rules, because it is convention delegates who ultimately select the nominees. CONT.
Mark Mellman (Mellman Group), The Hill