So... Indiana made their voices heard and here's the results of their primary:

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders notched a minor victory over Hillary Clinton. Both will pick up delegates from Indiana though so he did not make much of a dent into her big delegate lead. Interestingly, just a few weeks/months ago Sanders was complaining about super delegates saying how unfair it was they could vote for whomever they wanted rather than have to go by the will of the people in their respective states and yet now is begging them to switch allegiance from Clinton (she has overwhelming support from the super delegates compared to Sanders) to him claiming they should because some polls claim he would beat Trump by a greater percentage of votes. It's a Hail Mary pass for Sanders at this point. Clinton only needs about 200 more pledged delegates to officially clinch the nomination with well more than that still on the table because there are still several more states left to vote (California alone has over 400 delegates for the Democratic party).

As for the Republicans and the aforementioned Donald Trump... well, despite last ditch efforts by Ted Cruz, Trump won again and with over 50%, something Trump has been managing to do ever since New York's primary last month. As a result, a quite shockingly to some, Ted Cruz announced he's suspending his campaign for the presidency. Cruz' only path to the nomination would've been through a contested convention, and with every state Trump wins he gets closer and closer to preventing that from being able to happen. At this point, Trump only needs about 200 more delegates (similarly to Clinton). Several upcoming states on the GOP side are winner take all and Trump is leading in the polls in many of those states. Cruz' camp stated Indiana was a "must win" for them. Without it, there was little chance the "Stop Trump" campaign could actually succeed in doing so. Even the Republican Party Chairman has acknowledged Trump is the presumptive nominee. John Kasich; however, remains undeterred despite his continual third place finish.

So.... who here is happy with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee?

Well.... it didn't take long for John Kasich to re-evaluate his campaign and opt to suspend it just like Ted Cruz did. Kasich and Cruz will presumably still appear on ballots in those states that have yet to hold primaries (primaries will still go on through next month) but for all intents and purposes there is no one in the way of Donald Trump winning the nomination. Trump is the only person on the Republican side still technically in the running so basically, like it or not, Donald Trump is the Republican nominee unless something really bizarre happens between now and the GOP convention.

I'm really curious how Republicans here feel about Trump being the nominee - are you happy with Trump? Do you see yourself voting for him? Or are you among the part of the party that refuses to vote for him? If that's the case, would you vote for Clinton (since she is presumably the Democratic nominee) or choose to stay home on election night? Or are you hoping there will be a third party candidate you can get behind?

Trump says he will name his Vice President choice before the convention - anyone wish to weigh in on who you think that should be?

I haven't posted results here on the regular in a while because I was figuring it was getting boring.... besides, it doesn't seem like there are too many people popping in around here again so there didn't seem like much of a point. But it is worth noting today that despite Bernie Sanders swearing he's fighting on to the convention, Hillary Clinton has the number of delegates necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination, which would make her the first woman to win a major party's nomination for President in the US.

Sanders keeps suggesting that because Clinton doesn't have enough pledged delegates alone to put her over the required number of delegates it means there is no presumptive nominee because super delegates do not vote until the convention so theoretically they could change their minds. There are some super delegates that have yet to pledge support to either candidate, but it seems highly unlikely that those who have already pledged support to Clinton would suddenly jump ship for Sanders given that she has earned more overall votes and the majority of the pledged delegates. Sanders still seems to believe he can sway super delegates by suggesting polls indicate he does better against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, but those same polls suggest Clinton beats Trump as well, so at this point Sanders doesn't have much left to stand on. Whether Sanders still does try to fight his way to the convention in hopes he can turn super delegates away from a historic nomination or not remains to be seen... he says he will but reports say he'll be laying off staff this week and President Obama plans to meet with him at some point soon, likely to suggest Sanders bow out gracefully the way Clinton eventually did for Obama in 2008, so they can unite the party in time of the convention.

Meanwhile, while no one is running against Trump anymore, he is running his mouth off about the federal judge presiding over the case against Trump University, essentially questioning whether the guy can do his job because he's of Mexican heritage which is not sitting well with many GOP leaders that had gotten on board with the notion Trump was going to be their man (apparently of all the appalling things Trump has said this election cycle, saying something about a federal judge is where they draw the line - not about a former POW turned Senator, or disabled people, or women, or anyone of any Hispanic descent Mexican or otherwise) are now wagging their fingers and telling Trump "not cool" in hopes they can get him to rein it in. Course, it's Trump so even if he does walk it back a bit he never says he's sorry and just goes back to talking smack about whole groups of the population like he's got the worst case of Irritable Foot-in-Mouth Syndrome ever known.

So... this is what we have - Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Do you know who you will be voting for in November or are you still on the fence? Will you wait to see who they pick for running mates or are you opting to see if any third party candidate gets enough notice to make it into debates later this year?

Thought I would post an update in case anyone is still checking in to this group and cares to read up on the political landscape:

So... Last Friday, soon to be official Republican nominee Donald Trump announced he has picked Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his VP running mate. Soon to be official Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will make her VP choice official by the end of this week, according to her camp, with names like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine high on the list.

The Republican National Convention began yesterday in Cleveland. There was some early uproar when the convention rules were "agreed" upon while there were delegates from several states demanding a roll call vote in an attempt to negate the previously agreed upon rules that would force delegates to vote for the candidate their state voted for them to vote for rather than allow them to vote their conscience. There was confusion in the hall when the acceptance of the rules went through because at least 11 states had petitions signed by their delegates that would have forced the roll call vote and yet it wasn't allowed. 10 minutes after the floor erupted in a chant for a roll call, someone came out on the stage to announce that 3 states reportedly did not have enough signatures after some delegates rescinded their signatures and thus the roll call vote could not be forced - though some on the floor suggested some people were strong armed into taking their names off the petitions and thus steamroll and silence the anti-Trump delegates in the room. The Colorado delegates actually left this afternoon after all this (I'm not sure if they returned for the evening portion of day 1 of the convention). Needless to say, things didn't seem to get off to a great start.

Duck Dynasty's Willie Robertson and actors Scott Baio and Antonio Sabato Jr. spoke along with some military family members who still want to blame Hillary Clinton for Benghazi despite all the Congressional reports showing she was not responsible for what happened there. And Donald introduced his seldom heard from wife Melania, who was the big speaker for the first night. Others expected to speak in the next three days of the convention include four of five of Trump's kids, his VP choice Mike Pence, and Trump himself.

Next week will be the Democratic convention. I don't know yet who is scheduled to speak when but you can expect speeches from President Obama, Vice President Biden, Former President Bill Clinton, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders, and of course nominee Hillary Clinton and whoever she choses as her running mate.

I don't know why I feel compelled to keep updating here since it seems no one is around in this group anymore but, you know, just in case or something...

So Hillary Clinton is the official Democratic nominee for President, the first woman to ever be a major party nominee for the highest office. She chose Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate and both made their formal introductions along with several impassioned pleas this week at the Democratic convention.

If there is anyone still checking in here - did you watch either convention? If so, did either one sway you one way or the other? Personally I felt the conventions told to very different views of America - the first (the GOP one) being very bleak, dismal, and fear-filled while the second was much more hopeful and optimistic and some actual plans laid out along the way to help improve that which still needs to be worked on to make things better but completely a 180 from the scare mongering of the week prior. I can't help but wonder how anyone who was on the fence before would still be after watching both conventions, because surely a hopeful message full of solutions and not just pointing out things that aren't even problems as being such is better than a fearful one where there were no positives and no plan of action. But that's me; I can readily admit I'm a biased New Yorker... which is why I am curious whether anyone else watched them and if so what they came away from them with. So if anyone is still checking in here and has an opinion to add, let's revive the conversation. There's 101 days till the election so we've got the time to chat about it...