Past GOP nominees such as George H.W. Bush in 1988, George W. Bush in 2000, Bob Dole in 1996 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 had bigger shares of the vote at this point, even if they started out slowly. You’ll also note, however, that the two most recent Republican nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney, weren’t doing too much better than Trump is now.

McCain and Romney, though, were far ahead of Trump at this point in the delegate race. All the eventual nominees studied here won a majority of the delegates allotted1 by this date. Trump remains short of a majority.

You’ll also note that past nominees tended to increase their delegate and vote leads from this point forward, mostly because their rivals had faded or dropped out. In 2008, McCain vanquished Romney by early February and Mike Huckabee by early March. About this time four years ago, Romney lost his main competitor, Rick Santorum, after winning the Wisconsin primary. That left McCain and Romney with an easy road to winning larger and larger shares of the delegates and votes in the remaining contests.