A quick civics lesson: To win a party's nomination for president, a candidate must win a majority of the delegates; not just the most delegates, but a majority of them. A majority means more than half. The candidate must have more delegates voting for him than there are delegates voting against him. Currently, on the Republican side, no candidate has a majority of the delegates awarded. One candidate has more than the others, but it is not a majority because there are still more delegates voting against him than there are voting for him.
So what happens? I'm glad you asked...
After all of the states have voted, if no candidate has a majority, which this year means 1237 delegates, the delegates will select a nominee at the convention. On the first ballot, delegates are bound to vote for their pledged candidate. After that, they are free to vote for others. Candidates will woo delegates and campaign for votes, and the delegates will keep voting until one candidate finally emerges with a majority. The winner might be the candidate who had the most delegates to begin with or it might be someone else. The key is that someone must build a coalition to amass a majority. This is not anti-democratic; it's how we end up with a consensus candidate, and it generally avoids extreme nominees.
I don't believe that any of the candidates is going to achieve that magic number for a majority this year. I think we're headed to a convention nomination this summer -- something I've never seen in my lifetime.
American politics is sometimes messy, very messy, but it always works. This year, in particular has seemed overly messy, but, it'll work out, just like it always has.
