Now might be a good time to grab a cup of coffee, because we're going to enter the world of f#@$ery that is the GOP's unbound delegate tally. Some wiggle room in the Republican Party rules allows states and territories to finagle unbound delegates should they so choose, and six have done so.

We're going to get help from professor of political science and election junkie Josh Putnam, whose blog Frontloading HQ has kept me from pulling my hair out many times. There's a loophole in the RNC rules: Republican delegates are bound by primaries/caucuses which feature a preference vote; VoteSmart explains that a preference vote means you're voting for a specific presidential candidate.

But the rules don't require such a vote to take place. The alternative is for people to vote for delegates to select the candidate at the party's convention, and that's what's up with North Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado.

... Kind of. North Dakota is the most unbound of the three; in Wyoming and Colorado, delegates up for election have to let voters know who they'll support at the convention. This is their pledge, and party rules bind them to their pledge (unless the candidate in question drops out). But delegates can run "uncommitted," meaning they can be elected without making a pledge, which would technically make them unbound.

There are 37 delegates in Colorado, three of them RNC members; it appears that the three RNC members can't be bound, since there's no preference vote. So, potentially 37 unbound delegates from Colorado, although 34 can be bound by a pledge. Wyoming has 29 delegates in all (including three RNC members - every state gets three of those).

Then there's Pennsylvania. In this state, there is something like a primary election (preference vote) but, for some reason, it doesn't really count. In Pennsylvania, 54 of the 71 total delegates will be unbound. These delegates will be elected during the primary, according to Ballotpedia, and the RNC guide to the primaries states they'll be elected specifically as unbound. Because...Pennsylvania?

It's similar in North Dakota, except the Dakotans won't bother with a non-binding preference vote. But as with Pennsylvania, the delegate candidates in this state don't pledge to support any presidential candidate as part of their nomination process. These delegates are truly free-wheelers as well, and the state has 28 of them.

And then there's Guam and American Samoa, each of which has nine delegates. There is no preference poll, and delegates don't have to indicate who they support before the convention, and are therefore unbound.

So how many unbound RNC delegates are there? We simply don't know right now - it depends on who else drops out of the race and how many "uncommitted" delegates (if any) get elected in states without preference votes.

With Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Guam, and American Samoa, we've got a total of 100 that are truly unbound. Factoring in Colorado and Wyoming, anywhere from zero to 66 more could be unbound. So let's go with the range 100-166 on the Republican side for unbound delegates. That accounts for between about eight and 13 percent of the 1,237 needed to win the nomination.

Maybe it means Donald has some political skills.  I think that it!

Why do you think Donald Trump is a political genius beyond your usual answer of 'winning'.

He knows EXACTLY how to the push the exact right buttons of an unfortunately sizable contingent of psychologically vulnerable folks with poorly developed critical thinking skills

This is simply not true.   There are lots and lots of Trump supporters who's critical thinking skills are every bit as good as yours.  Maybe even better.

This arrogant clueless tendency of way to many liberals to assume everyone who disagrees with them is simply stupid is, well, simply stupid.