To which you could add that Trump and Cruz are benefiting from a large number of relatively low-profile candidates vying for the role of the &quot;establishment candidate&quot; which will soon be pared down, and the rules of the Democratic contest mean that Sanders either has to persuade a lot of party grandees to nominate him or win the caucus votes by a large margin.<p>The chances of both of them being on the ballot are pretty slim, and the likelihood of one of them being able to win an election in a head-to-head race with a non-alarming establishment candidate is slimmer still. Radical candidates can shift the political agenda, but the closer they get to actual power, the more likely they are to shift it in the opposite direction to the one they intend.