2016 primaries: The home stretch, by the numbers
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump won big in Tuesday night's New York primaries, reasserting themselves as the clear frontrunners of their respective races. Both used victory speeches to pitch themselves as presumptive nominees, signaling a desire to put the messiness of the primary season behind them.
"We don't have much of a race anymore," Trump declared confidently. "We're going to go into the convention, I think, as the winner."
"The race for the Democratic nomination is in the homestretch and victory is in sight," offered Clinton.
Of course, their opponents might have something to say about that. But with less than two months and only a handful of states left on the primary calendar, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich are running out of opportunities to shake up the race.
Here's a look at where things stand in the race for delegates in both parties - and a preview of how the final few states might affect the outcome as this raucous primary season draws to a close.
Delegate Math
In the Republican race, Donald Trump has widened his lead in the GOP's delegate count after winning at least 89 of New York's 95 delegates:
With 844 delegates, Trump is only 393 delegates shy of the 1,237 he needs to clinch the nomination. Only 674 delegates will be doled out in the remaining states on the GOP side, and a handful of delegates remain unbound and unallocated. Trump would need to win 52 percent of those two groups of remaining delegates to reach 1,237 and win the nomination on the first ballot.
It's a tall order, but it's not impossible: Trump won New York with roughly 60 percent of the vote, but he picked up over 90 percent of the state's delegates. The results put him back on a trajectory to approach or narrowly surpass the threshold of 1,237, but he needs to perform very well in the upcoming contests to meet that goal.
His opponents are predicting he won't be able to close the deal. "We are headed to a contested convention. At this point nobody is getting 1,237," Cruz said in a Wednesday interview with CBS Radio in Philadelphia.
As "Face the Nation" moderator John Dickerson explained Wednesday, there may be some "wiggle room" in the GOP delegate math that could work in Trump's favor -- or against him.
"There will be more than a hundred unpledged delegates who will go to the convention in Cleveland with no allegiance. If Donald Trump is short of the 1,237 mark, he could convince some of those unpledged delegates to come his way and give him the majority on the first ballot," Dickerson said. "It's also possible that there might be credential challenges that take away delegates from his total though, so the wiggle room could work the other way."
On the Democratic side, Clinton's big win in New York re-established her as the presumptive Democratic nominee, padding her already-wide delegate lead:
4,765 total delegates are at stake in the Democratic contest, but 714 of those are so-called "super delegates" that are not bound by the outcome of their state's primary. That means only 4,051 delegates are "pledged," or assigned by election results.
Tuesday's results all but closed off Bernie Sanders' ability to win a majority of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season. Clinton has won 1,425 pledged delegates to date, and he has won 1,134. Only 1,400 pledged delegates are at stake in the upcoming contests. To win an overall majority of the pledged delegates, Clinton would need to obtain roughly 44 percent of those remaining pledged delegates. Sanders, by contrast, would need to win over 60 percent of the remaining pledged delegates to overtake Clinton in the pledged delegate count.
Sanders' team has raised the possibility of persuading super delegates to give him the nomination even if he trails Clinton in the pledged delegate count by the end of the primary calendar, pointing to his stronger performance in early general election polls and the enthusiasm surrounding his candidacy. But unless Sanders can at least pull even with Clinton in the pledged delegate count, that's going to be a hard sell - super delegates are already overwhelmingly in Clinton's corner, and they'd be unlikely to overturn the expressed will of the voters if she ends the primary calendar with a pledged delegate lead.
April 26 primaries
The next stop for both parties is a series of April 26 primaries throughout the mid-Atlantic: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Connecticut. Most of the states look to be favorable terrain for the two frontrunners.
In Pennsylvania, the biggest delegate prize of the night, our latest CBS News Battleground Tracker poll, released Sunday, found Trump with a wide lead, earning 46 percent to Cruz's 26 percent and Kasich's 23 percent. On the Democratic side, a Monmouth poll released Wednesday found Clinton ahead of Sanders, 52 to 39 percent. We'll have new Battleground Tracker numbers out of Pennsylvania this Sunday on "Face the Nation"
Clinton and Trump also lead in Connecticut, according to a new Quinnipiac poll - Clinton was up 9 points and Trump was ahead by 20. Public polling on the races in Maryland, Delaware, and Rhode Island is scant, but most analysts expect the states to also favor Clinton and Trump
May primaries
Republicans cast ballots in Indiana, Nebraska, West Virginia, Oregon, and Washington across several different days in May. Public polling on these contests is also scarce, but Cruz's team is expected to devote considerable attention to Indiana, where they hope to replicate Cruz's big win in the Wisconsin primary and make Trump's march to 1,237 delegates considerably more difficult. Some analysts believe Oregon and Washington could also prove fertile ground for Cruz, allowing him to siphon more delegates away from the GOP frontrunner.
Democratic contests in May include Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oregon, also spread across several different days. Indiana will be the pivotal state to watch for Democrats in May. A big Sanders win there could reopen doubts about Clinton's inevitability. A Clinton victory would further cement her status as the presumptive nominee.
We'll have new Battleground Tracker numbers on the Indiana race this Sunday on "Face the Nation."
June primaries
Republicans in five states -- California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Montana, and South Dakota -- will vote on on June 7. Trump is expected to do well in New Jersey (a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released last week found the GOP frontrunner with a 28-point lead,) while Cruz is likely to do well in Montana and South Dakota. New Mexico looks to be a jump ball, but the big prize of the night, of course, will be California, where 172 delegates are up for grabs. The results there could tell us whether Trump reached the magic number of 1,237 delegates, or whether he'll have to fight for the nomination at a contested convention. Our latest CBS News Battleground Tracker found Trump with a significant lead in California, winning 49 percent to Cruz's 31 percent and Kasich's 16 percent.
The Democratic contest in June begins with Puerto Rico on June 5; Hillary Clinton is favored to win. Two days later, on June 7, Democrats in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota will cast ballots. The big prize, again, is California, which will send 475 delegates to the Democratic convention. And more than a month ahead of that contest, Clinton is holding a significant but not overwhelming lead, topping Sanders 52 to 40 percent in our latest Battleground Tracker.
The final contest of the 2016 primary will be the Washington, D.C. Democratic primary on June 15, but with only 20 delegates up for grabs, the results are likely to be little more than an asterisk.
For the latest news and analysis on the 2016 election, including a new set of CBS News Battleground Tracker poll numbers, tune into "Face the Nation" this Sunday. Check your local listings for airtimes.