Early Republican primary voters in Arizona’s largest county voted largely in favor of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, according to numbers provided Tuesday evening by the Maricopa County recorder’s office.
The fourth-most populous county in the U.S, which is home to approximately 3.8 million Arizonans and the state capital of Phoenix, saw roughly 120,000 registered Republicans cast early ballots for Trump.
Last week, the Washington Examiner determined that three-quarters of Maricopa County’s total GOP primary vote in 2012 had already been cast. At the time, the numbers suggested Trump could have a cushion to protect him against a last-minute surge by Cruz.
But the final breakdown of Maricopa County’s early votes suggests Cruz never came close to surpassing his leading Republican opponent.
According to the numbers, Cruz received just under 6,000 more early votes (53,149) than Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (47,351), who suspended his campaign last Tuesday.
In fact, a combined total of more than 60,000 early votes were cast in Maricopa County for GOP presidential hopefuls no longer in the race. That tops the total number of early votes cast for Cruz and the number of early votes separating him from Trump.
Democratic strategist Chris Herstam told the Examiner last week that a “diluted” and spread-out anti-Trump vote would almost certainly benefit the New York billionaire in the Grand Canyon State. He called it Trump’s “modus operandi throughout the race.”
Trump was projected the winner of Arizona at around 11:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Because the state’s Republican primary is a winner-take-all contest, the GOP front-runner will add all of Arizona’s 58 delegates to his count.
