US Election 2016: the state of the race with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton set for general election showdown

After a string of victories for the two front-runners, America appears to be barreling toward a general election showdown between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

With just ten of the 50 states remaining, the business mogul and former secretary of state hold nearly insurmountable delegate leads, though neither has yet clinched victory.

The anti-Trump forces are rallying for a last stand, and Bernie Sanders has declined to make way for Hillary Clinton.

So where does the US election stand at the moment, and where do we go from here?

The remaining obstacles

The Democratic race is, for all intents and purposes and despite the token protestations of the Sanders campaign, a done deal.

Mr Sanders would have to win the remaining contests by enormous, unrealistic, margins to catch Mrs Clinton. 

His campaign has begun laying off staff and signalled that while the Vermont senator will remain in the race, his intention is not to unseat Mrs Clinton but to pull her leftward.

Things are significantly more complicated for Mr Trump, who still needs to pick up the lion’s share of the remaining delegates to win the nomination outright.

His most obvious path to victory would be to win Indiana on May 3 and then get across the finish line with a win in California on June 7. 

The Indiana contest is particularly crucial. The polls are tight between Mr Trump and Ted Cruz, who has called the state his "firewall", with the winner expected to take virtually all of the delegates.

Should he fall short, he may have to fight for the nomination at a contested convention in July, where the delegates he has accumulated along the way would only be bound to support him on the first ballot.

Another candidate, most likely Mr Cruz, could then hypothetically pilfer Trump delegates on subsequent ballots and wrest the nomination from Mr Trump’s grasp.

While still possible, that scenario is looking increasingly unlikely.

The current standings

Republicans:

Democrats:

The key dates

·         May 3: Indiana primary

·         May 10, 17: Four more states hold primary elections

·         June 7: Six states, including California, go to the polls on final primary election day

·         July 18-21: Republican National Convention in Cleveland

·         July 25-28: Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia

·         Sept 26: First general election TV debate

·         Nov 8: General election

·         Jan 20, 2017: Inauguration day for next President of the United States

Handicapping the race

The prevailing view is that if it comes down to Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton in November, the former First Lady would head straight for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Democrats have built-in demographic and geographic advantages in general elections, such that a Republican must win nearly all of the swing states to triumph.

Given Mrs Clinton’s polling advantages over Mr Trump among women (66 to 26 in a recent poll), Hispanics (76-11) and Independents (51-33), the bombastic billionaire appears ill-equipped to overcome those hurdles.

Mr Trump argues, however, that as a non-traditional candidate with a policy platform that cuts across the typical partisan divides, he could put states like Pennsylvania and New York that have been solidly Democratic for years back into play.

That optimism is yet to be borne out by data, but Mrs Clinton has remarkably high negatives of her own and appears beatable if Mr Trump can strike the right balance in the fall.

At present, PredictWise gives Mrs Clinton a 78 per cent chance of winning the White House, with Mr Trump coming in at 19 per cent.