Donald Trump and his minions have started throwing temper tantrums about the delegate selection process. Ted Cruz had a more prepared team in Colorado and basically wound up with all of the available delegates. Nothing was “stolen” and there were no “shenanigans” (a word that is quickly becoming the favorite of Trump booster Eric Bolling). There are rules in place and Trump’s team didn’t do the necessary work. Simple as that.

Despite all of the Trump blubbering and hand-wringing from Trump surrogates over at Fox News, the rules they are constantly complaining about have actually been a benefit to Trump, not a hindrance and in fact, have inflated Trump’s numbers over Cruz when taking a closer look at votes vs delegates awarded.

Ari Melber has done a good job of looking at the numbers:

 Trump now leads the Republican field with 756 delegates — or 45 percent of all delegates awarded to date. Yet he has won about 37 percent of all votes in the primaries, according to the NBC analysis, meaning Trump’s delegate support is greater than his actual support from voters.

For each percentage point of total primary votes that Trump has won, he has been awarded 1.22 percent of the total delegates.

In other words, as a matter of Republican Party math, Trump has been awarded a delegate bonus of 22 percent above his raw support from voters.

By contrast, Cruz has been awarded about 1.14 percent of the delegates for each percentage point of votes he has won — a delegate bonus of 14 percent above his raw support.

(Cruz’s 545 delegates comprise 32 percent of all delegates awarded to date, while he has won about 28 percent of all votes in the primaries, according to the NBC analysis.)

Taken together, the data show Trump has been awarded 8 percent more delegates than Cruz for the same rate of voter support.

Emphasis mine.

How can this be?? What kind of SHENANIGANS are the Trump people engaging in that he has 8% more delegates than Cruz for the same rate of voter support? This is an OUTRAGE!

Not really. It’s just you don’t hear Cruz’s team sniveling about it the way you do from Trump and his supporters.

Melber then goes on to notice something Trump is doing at his rallies. Lying, of course:

As the race turns to a possible open convention, however, Republicans may focus on what circumstances could justify awarding the nomination to the runner-up in the popular vote. One factor is certainly the size of the gap between the two men — which may be why Trump is now campaigning on an exaggerated estimate of his lead in the raw vote.

At his Sunday rally, Trump claimed he has “won twice as much as Cruz.”

“I don’t mean I’m up by like two votes,” he said. “I’m up millions and millions of votes.”

That is incorrect. Trump has a significant lead, but it is not double Cruz’s vote total. Trump has won 8,198,026 votes — or 1.9 million more than Cruz, who has won 6,263,574 total votes.

The real estate mogul who is always doing numbers in his head wants people to think Cruz only has around 4 million votes.

So the next time you come across a Trumpkin, going all Alex Jones about the ESTABLISHMENT trying to “steal” the nomination from Trump, send them this way.