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Votes Candidates Debates States Popular Super
(millions) delegates delegates
Democrat 31.22 3 9 50 4051 712
Republican 30.64 17 12 50 2472 0
Libertarian .03 13 21 6 n/a n/a
Green .02 6 4 35 402 0
Votes Vote % Total Popular Super States
delegates delegates delegates
Trump 14013998 44.9 1441 1441 - 36 Republican
Cruz 7822100 25.1 551 551 - 11
Kasich 4290448 13.8 161 161 - 1
Rubio 3515576 11.3 173 173 - 1
Clinton 16912545 55.2 2842 2271.5 570.5 28 Democrat
Sanders 13206428 43.1 1865 1821.5 44.5 22
O'Malley ? ? 0 1 0
Johnson 22642 59.6 n/a n/a - 5 Libertarian
McAfee 3391 8.9 n/a n/a - 0
Peterson 3066 8.1 n/a n/a - 0
Stein 13231 ? 269.5 269.5 - 34 Green
Kreml ? ? 18.5 18.5 - 1
The strength of a party rests in the strength of the primary. The Republican party held a fair primary with diverse candidates and abundant debates whereas the Democratic primary was rigged. The Libertarian party had a robust set of candidates and debates but few watched.
To paraphrase Arrow's theorem, there does not exist a fully satisfactory election process. There exist many bad schemes that usually produce ridiculous results and there are a few good schemes (none of them perfect) that still occasionally produce ridiculuous results. Ridiculosity can be minimized by holding several rounds of elections, trimming the weakest candidates each round. The penultimate round should have exactly 3 candidates and the final round should have exactly 2 candidates.
An election with 2 candidates doesn't have pitfalls whereas pitfalls abound with more than 2 candidates. Pitfalls can be minimized by focusing on trimming the weakest candidates rather than on identifying the strongest candidates. Several rounds of gradual trimming can occur to narrow the field down to 1 candidate.
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