The race for the GOP presidential nomination won't be secured until at least May, Republican National Committee chief strategist and communications director Sean Spicer said on Monday, and he does not expect that a brokered convention will take place in July.
"If you won every single delegate going forward today, no candidate could reach the 1,237 [needed] to be the nominee until April 26," Spicer told CNN's
"New Day" program.
"That's impossible. We guarantee we won't have a nominee until May."
Currently, he pointed out, only 906 of the 4,672 delegates are in place, and there are still nine "winner-take-all" states in play, meaning there is "an opportunity for folks to break away."
Over the weekend, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took two states and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio won in Puerto Rico.
Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. John Kasich was never trying to win in any of those places, but has his eyes on his home state and Michigan, and Spicer said the race is tightening after so many people dropped out.
"People are focusing on choices," he said. "It is not the 17 we started off with. So what you are seeing is a bit of that tightening
. . . We're not that far apart when we look at where everyone stands. You have two of the folks in the 300s. Another person, 150 back. But this is not some kind of far and wide race."
But he is not concerned that there will be a brokered convention, as there will be a nominee with the delegates needed to take first place.
"I still think we are on track for that to happen," said Spicer, calling that discussion on the issue a "nice parlor game" to play for now.
"I believe we are at 85 percent certainty we will have a nominee going into the convention."