What does Donald Trump being 74 delegates short mean?

What it means is that to win automatically, Trump would need 74 more delegates than he is likely to have. The delegates chosen for candidates who have dropped out can choose anyone of the final candidates to vote for. So if enough of them vote for someone else, or there is no clear majority, then they can get into a battle over the delegates. The GOP know Trump will be easy for the democratic candidate to beat. Hillary wins and Sanders does better than Clinton. So they will try their best to make it so the crazy hatemonger doesn't win the nomination. The delegates will be the ones who deny him the nomination, although they can do a brokered convention that will keep him from the nomination.

In which case, Trump might run as an independent and split the vote and the democratic nominee will win.

Basically with the number crunch he still wouldn't reach the amount of delegates to lock in the nomination which means it then goes to a contested nomination where the party decides how they will pick their nominee, normally in this case those delegates just go to the front runner but nothing about Trump has been predictable.

The Republican party could easily deny Trump the nomination. But to do so would be handing the Democratic nominee the election. As Trump would either run as a third party or turn off all his supporters from voting Republican, and most were already Republicans so it would be a suicide situation for the Republican party.

This is the article.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/13...

It means that someone made a calculation and saw a way that Trump would be 74 votes short of automatic nomination. (which is what the party normally wants). It means nothing at this point.

You should read things carefully.

Breitbart is a horrible source for anything. It is true if Trump was 74 votes short it would be politically unacceptable for the anti-Trump forces to deny him nomination. Not that the party would not do it.

Even if Trump wins every state. He will still be 74 delegates short from automatically be given the nomination. And if there is no winner, the delegates have the choice to go to whatever candidate they want (brokered convention)

If no candidate wins more than half of the delegates, the candidate is chosen at the convention. When this has happened in the past, deals are made and candidates are bought out. Trump cannot be bought out, so if he has the most delegates and the Republicans select someone else, the Republicans will be dead meat.

You need 1237 delegates to walk into the Convention with a clear path to the nomination. If Trump falls short, he is not guaranteed that path.

It would be a brokered convention or an open convention... a brokered convention (they elect candidate) an open convention (we elect candidate) due to the fact that so many people would be outraged that their vote didn't matter a brokered convention would cause a huge uprising...so an open convention will most likely happen...BUT...we already know this entire election has been rigged from day one...I wouldn't be surprised if it went to a brokered convention just to create more divide in our country...its all about divide and conquer

Yes

Just because you have the most delegates, you don't necessarily get to be the nominee.

Why should 40% of the party get to impose their candidate on the whole party, if the sixty percent hate him?