So Donald Trump is for real…or is he?

Cruz is about 100 delegates behind Trump as of this post (334 to 233) and Rubio has 116 delegates. A total of 1,237 delegates is needed to win, so the race is far from over.

Something else that does not seem to make it to the headlines: Let’s say Rubio drops out and endorses Cruz. In theory those delegates would go to Cruz who would be ahead (349 to 334). Kasich has 25 pledged delegates , Carson 7 and Bush probably has a few who are free to choose whoever if/when their candidate drops out. This is a much different situation than on the Democrats side where Hilliary has a 1034 to 408 lead over Sanders with no other meaningful number from any other candidate (2,382 needed to win).

Looking at the total popular vote (just as an FYI) for the GOP, Trump has 3.3M votes but the other candidates total twice that (over 7M). So he would have to pull at least 2M of those voters (most of whom hate him) to “win” with GOP voters. For reference, Hillary has a 3.9M to 2.5M edge over Sanders.

Regardless of the eventual outcome, Trump has already “won” in that he is in the spotlight 24/7. His actual fortune is built on a real estate house of cards but as long as his “brand” is out there, he is worth some undefined amount of money. Trumps shameless and simplistic self-promotion has made a mockery of the US presidential election process which (while not such a herculean feat) has exposed how many truly ignorant, angry and bigoted citizens we have in this country. This verifies what we have suspected all along: that we have a long way to go in how we think about and treat our fellow Americans.

For that, we should probably thank him.