Primary Results from March 9

Tuesday Primary Races: Trump Wins 3, Cruz Wins 1,by Ann-Marie Murrell, 3/9/16

It was a great night for Donald Trump while not-so-great night for Sen. Marco Rubio as the remaining 4 GOP presidential candidates sought to win four states and 150 delegates on Tuesday.

Donald Trump won 3 states, Michigan, Mississippi, and Hawaii, and Ted Cruz won Idaho. But from The Atlantic:

Marco Rubio was the night’s biggest loser. The Florida senator failed to cross the 15 percent threshold required to win a share of the delegates in either Mississippi or Michigan. He didn’t even clear 10 percent. Those poor showings come on the heels of a nearly as dismal March 5 performance, mitigated only by his win in Puerto Rico on March 6. It’s a catastrophic moment for Rubio, who once seemed to have a bright future in the Republican Party, and who had won the affection of the party’s establishment. It’s clear now how little that counts for this year. Ordinarily, Rubio might face calls to drop out of the race now, but with his home-state Florida primary approaching on March 15, he might just hang until then. He’s promised to win the Sunshine State, but few analysts or polls give him a strong chance.

Here are the detailed results of each of the primary states of Mississippi, Michigan, Idaho and Hawaii.

MISSISSIPPI:  Open primary, 40 Delegates

Winner:  Donald Trump, 47.7%, won 24 delegates
2nd:  Sen. Ted Cruz, 36.3%,won 13 delegates
3rd:  Gov. John Kasich, 7.6%

From NBC.com:

“Donald Trump won the Mississippi Republican primary Tuesday, performing particularly well with voters who are angry with the federal government and those who think the next president should be a political outsider…Trump also did well with voters in Mississippi who are either somewhat conservative or who are moderate or liberal.”

Hillary Clinton heartily beat Bernie Sanders in the Democrat primary, 82.9%/16.2%.

Michigan:  Open primary, 59 Delegates

Winner:  Donald Trump, 32%, won 25 delegates
2nd:  Sen. Ted Cruz, 24.9%, won 17 delegates
3rd:  Gov. John Kasich, 24.3%, won 17 delegates

Voter turnout in Michigan was much higher than expected and at one point they actually ran out of ballots.  WZZM reports, “They were without ballots for about two hours, and people were turned away and told to return later.  Another voter at Wyoming’s Bethany United Reformed Church — precincts 24 and 25 — said they ran out of Republican ballots for more than an hour.”

The biggest fight of the night ended up being for 2nd place between Sen. Cruz and John Kasich.  At one point with 91% polls reporting Cruz had 24.8% (or 297,791 votes) and Kasich had 24.4% (293,383 votes).

According to the CBS News exit poll,

“Trump ran strongly among men (he won 44 percent) but did not do well among women: he took 28 percent, versus 29 percent for Cruz and 26 percent for Kasich.

Trump also ran well among Republican voters without a college degree (he took 44 percent, compared with 26 percent for Cruz and 19 percent for Kasich). Kasich, however, edged both Cruz and Trump among voters with a college degree (30 for Kasich, 27 percent for Trump, and 26 percent for Cruz).

Cruz ran strongest among those who said they are “very conservative” and among evangelical Christians. However, Trump did equally well among evangelicals and much better among those who said they were not evangelical Christians.

What would have happened if only Trump and Cruz were on the ballot? Forty-six percent said that they would have voted for Cruz, 37 percent for Trump, and 12 percent said they wouldn’t have voted. Even though Rubio ran a distant fourth overall, in a two-way race with Trump, 44 percent said they would have voted for Rubio and 43 percent would have backed Trump.”

On the Democrat side, Sen. Bernie Sanders surprised everyone by beating Hillary Clinton 50.8%/48.0%.

Idaho:  Closed primary, 32 Delegates

Winner:  Sen. Ted Cruz, 44.2%, won 14 delegates
2nd:   Donald Trump, 28.1%, won 10 delegates
3rd:  Sen. Marco Rubio, 16%

From Redstate, “Idaho is a proportional state as well, so we don’t know the delegate count, but based on exit polling, it seems that Trump will take a large share of the 32 delegates…This is a closed primary, which means there were no Democrats to help Donald Trump over the finish line.” 

Hawaii:  Closed caucus, 19 Delegates

Winner: Donald Trump, 45.2%
2nd:  Sen. Ted Cruz, 32.1%
3rd:  Sen. Marco Rubio, 11.7%

Donald Trump won perhaps the most liberal state of the night with Sen. Cruz coming in 2nd.   Sen. Rubio beat John Kasich for 3rd place

The Honolulu Star Advisor wrote, “Long lines at several caucus sites on Oahu indicate that Hawaii GOP leaders’ hopes for a big turnout are being realized. Before voting started, they said they hoped for about 20,000 voters or more, which would be about twice the number of the party’s strong showing in the 2012 caucus.”

1237 delegates are needed to win the GOP nomination.  After Tuesday’s primary, here are the total delegates for each candidate:

Trump picked up 80 delegates.  Total:  458

Cruz picked up 49 delegates.  Total:  359

Rubio picked up 0 delegates.  Total:  151

Kasich picked up 17 delegates.  Total:  54

http://politichicks.com/2016/03/tuesday-primary-races-trump-wins-3-cruz-wins-1/