As primary season comes to a close, the conventions loom for both parties.

Republicans

As the presidential race boils down to the last few primaries, Donald Trump secures a strong lead in the delegate count with no substantive competitors. After realizing their slim chances for success, all other Republican candidates withdrew, with Ted Cruz dropping out on May 3 and John Kasich following soon after on May 4. Although many hoped Trump would not receive enough votes on the first ballot, the lack of competitors and the few primaries left (only three in May and four in June) leave Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee. However, Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House from Wisconsin, and other conservatives refuse to endorse Trump as the Republican nominee, ramping up party tensions. However, the establishment may soon fall in line behind Trump; Paul Ryan has met with Trump and Mitch McConnell has agreed to meet with him in the near future. With a divided party and a missing key endorsement, Trump needs to fight to catch up with Clinton in the national polls. Currently, Clinton has 43.8 percent of the country’s support, while Trump has 37.7 percent. If Trump does take the White House in November, Chris Christie will lead his transition team. On July 18 at the Republican convention in Cleveland, Ohio, the GOP will officially pick its nominee.

Democrats

The Bernie Sanders campaign continues to gain momentum; however, Hillary Clinton has a 769-delegate lead on Sanders, so the chances of his success are getting slimmer. In order for Sanders to surpass Clinton in delegates, he will need to win just about all of the 1,064 remaining delegates unless he can manage to win over a large amount of superdelegates – they can vote for whomever they chose, instead of representing their constituents. Clinton has 94 percent of the delegates needed to receive the nomination, and most media sources are already counting Sanders out entirely. NBC’s popular show “Saturday Night Live” has stopped doing Clinton vs. Sanders sketches and has now moved towards Clinton vs. Trump skits. Out of the 86 political articles written in the last 4 days, The Washington Post has written one about Sanders. No matter the disparity in numbers, Sanders claims he will continue to run an issue-centered campaign and will not give up on it.

– Emily Fuller – Castoff Editor –