Winners By State So Far In The 2016 Primary Season

Republicans Who Have Won Any States or Territories

Trump (15 states, 461 delegates) - Hawaii, Nevada, Michigan, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, South Carolina,  Mississippi, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas.

Trump is still the clear front runner even though attacks from the GOP establishment have dampened his performance in the polls and he has merely a plurality and not a majority of delegates awarded so far.

Cruz (7 states; 360 delegates) - Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Alaska, Idaho, Maine

People who need lots and lots of elbow room seem to like Cruz.  Everybody else, not so much.  He is the Republican party's last, best hope of defeating Trump.

Rubio (2 states/territories; 154 delegates) - Minnesota, Puerto Rico

It has been a while since Rubio managed to pull of second place in a state.  His only prospect of winning is via a brokered convention and it would be hard to imagine that a convention where the lion's share of delegates are pledged to Trump and Cruz would back Rubio instead.

Ohio Governor Kaisch, who has 54 delegates is the only candidate with a still active campaign who has not yet won a single state.  He hopes to change that by winning in Ohio on March 15.  But, even if he did win Ohio's winner take all delegates, he wouldn't have a prayer of winning the GOP nomination.

About 2% of GOP delegates (8 delegates for Ben Carson and 4 delegates for Jeb Bush) have gone to candidates who have now left the race.  They can vote for anyone they like at the GOP national convention this summer.

There are 2472 Republican delegates in all, so 1237 delegates are needed to win.

As I write, the CNN prediction market puts the odds on various candidates winning the nomination as follows:

Trump 75%, Cruz 18%, Kaisch 4%, Rubio 1%.

These estimates sound about right to me, although I'd be inclined to put Cruz a bit higher, Trump a bit lower and Kaisch a bit lower.

Democrats Who Have Won Any States or Territories

Clinton (12) - Nevada, Iowa, Texas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas

The tally of states doesn't really reflect the decisive advantage that Clinton has with African-American voters relative to Sanders.  Clinton sometimes does better with African-American voters than Barack Obama did running in the primary against Clinton in 2008.

Sanders (10) - Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, Oklahoma, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, American Samoa

On average, Sanders has won states by smaller margins than Clinton which matters a lot when delegates are allocated proportionately as they are in many states.  And, Sanders is disfavored relative to Clinton by a 20-1 or so ratio among the very large numbers of Superdelegates with a say in the Presidential primary process.

As I write, the CNN prediction market puts the odds on various candidates winning the nomination as follows:

Clinton 88%, Sanders 10%.

These estimates sound about right to me, although I'd put the odds of a Sanders win closer to 15%-18%, and it is hard to explain the 2 percentage point gap which seems too high.

Prediction Market Prediction Of General Election Winner

As I write, the CNN prediction market puts the odds of various candidates securing the Presidency as follows:

Clinton 64%, Trump 20%, Cruz 10%, Sanders 2%, Rubio 1%.  This leaves a gap of 3% which is about right for Kaisch's odds of winning the Presidency consistent with the nomination percentages and subject to rounding error.

The separate contract of the odds of the Democrats winning the Presidency is 67% which is consistent up to rounding error.

This seems a bit too optimistic on the Democratic side to me.

Other Predictions

It puts the odds of the Democrats retaking the House at 4% and  the odds of the Democrats retaking the Senate at 26%. These predictions seem a bit low to me, I'd put the odds of retaking the House at more like 6%-8%, and the odds of retaking the Senate at more like 35%-40%.

It puts the odds of President Obama successfully seating a new U.S. Supreme Court justice to fill the current vacancy at 26%.  This also seems low to me, I'd put it at more like 40%-45%.