WASHINGTON — The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are coming to terms with the mathematical reality of chasing delegates ahead of the conventions, with front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump driving for challenge-proof majorities against rivals who won’t go away.
For Trump, who remains well short of the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the GOP nod, that means his campaign must focus on developing a delegate-centered strategy akin to the one that rival Ted Cruz has pursued for months.
‘‘A more traditional approach is needed and Donald Trump recognizes that,’’ Paul Manafort, Trump’s new delegate chief, said Sunday on NBC’s ‘‘Meet the Press.’’
Even so, the billionaire developer later in the day complained that the system is ‘‘corrupt’’ and ‘‘it’s not right’’ that the person who wins the most votes may not be the nominee.
If he is denied the GOP nomination, Trump told a crowd in Rochester, N.Y., ‘‘You’re going to have a big problem, folks.’’
For Clinton, who lost Wyoming Saturday to Bernie Sanders, it means maintaining her commanding leads among delegates and popular votes no matter how many states Sanders wins. Key is a win April 19 in New York, which she represented in the US Senate.
After the New York primaries, attention will turn to five states holding primaries April 26: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
Ohio Governor John Kasich sees ‘‘great concern’’ not just about how Trump or Cruz would represent the GOP, but about the prospect of “a blowout loss, up and down the ticket, in November,’’ he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.’’ ‘‘We would lose seats all the way from the state house to the courthouse.’’
Sanders, behind Clinton by hundreds of delegates and more than 2.4 million votes, is pointing to statewide wins in seven of the last eight contests. But his latest victory, in Wyoming, did nothing to help him in the delegate chase: Sanders and Clinton each got seven delegates.
Trump is trying to catch up to Cruz’s ground operation. Manafort said the Cruz campaign is using a ‘‘scorched earth’’ approach in which ‘‘they don’t care about the party. If they don’t get what they want, they blow it up.’’
Clinton has 1,287 delegates based on primaries and caucuses, compared with Sanders’ 1,037. Including superdelegates, or party officials who can back any candidate, Clinton has 1,756, or 74 percent of the number needed to clinch the nomination. Sanders has 1,068.
Trump has little room for error. He’d need to win nearly 60 percent of remaining delegates to clinch the nomination before the convention. So far, he’s winning about 45 percent. After Cruz’s sweep of Colorado’s remaining delegates on Saturday, the Associated Press count stands at Trump 743, Cruz 545, and Kasich 143.
