This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on March 17, 2016 For the more con­ven­tion­al, es­tab­lish­ment-ori­ented Re­pub­lic­ans in this pres­id­en­tial elec­tion, things could be worse—but it’s hard to see how. Some now be­lieve that Don­ald Trump’s nom­in­a­tion is in­ev­it­able, that he can’t be pre­ven­ted from hit­ting the 1,237 del­eg­ates needed to win the nom­in­a­tion be­fore the Ju­ly 18 Re­pub­lic­an Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion in Clev­e­land. Per­son­ally, I still think there is a de­cent chance that he comes in a bit short of that ma­gic num­ber, and thus a con­tested con­ven­tion will oc­cur. My view is that Trump does not get a gimme putt on this course; he has to hit the ball in the hole. I don’t see Trump go­ing ball-cap-in-hand to RNC Chair Re­ince Priebus and get­ting a loan of 100 del­eg­ates or so if he’s short. Num­bers com­piled by The Green Pa­pers show that Trump has won 7.5 mil­lion votes so far, just 37 per­cent of the 20.3 mil­lion Re­pub­lic­an bal­lots cast. Trump is av­er­aging 36 per­cent of the Re­pub­lic­an vote in the Real­clear­polit­ics.com av­er­age of the ma­jor na­tion­al polls.

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