The polls have closed in Michigan and Mississippi and Donald Trump has been declared the winner in both Republican primaries. Hawaii and Idaho results will come in late. Here are a few brief thoughts:
Trump’s rise has parallels to Snyder’s
It shouldn’t be too surprising that Trump won Michigan. The state has an open primary, meaning moderate Democrats can cross over to the Republican primary. Donald Trump said it himself on Tuesday: “Democrats are coming over, Independents are coming over.” According to a CBS exit poll, 7 percent of Michigan GOP primary voters were Democrats, compared to 3 percent vice versa. Trump has a record of doing well in these open primaries during this campaign.
Michigan is a strange purple state, where Republicans win contests on the state level and Democrats win statewide contests for president and United States Senate. Look, for example, at Michigan’s Republican governor Rick Snyder.
In a way, Snyder’s first campaign is similar to Trump’s. During the hotly contested GOP gubernatorial primary of 2010, Snyder was one of the more moderate candidates and had some cross-party appeal. Snyder also came from a business background and had never served in elected office. Snyder beat three competitors who had held elected office, but only got 36 percent of the vote in the primary.
Sound familiar?
Delegate Count
At least in the first two contests of the night, it was a very bad night for Marco Rubio. His poor results were one thing, but he failed to reach the 15 percent required threshold to earn any delegates in Michigan or any of the at-large delegates in Mississippi. Because of that, he failed to dilute the number of delegates going to Trump.
By rough estimates from the AP, Trump now has 428 delegates to Cruz’s 315 and Rubio’s 151. Still, that’s not much of an improvement for Trump. Prior to the night, he had 44 percent of the delegates so far — now he has 45 percent. He did budge marginally closer to the nomination, moving from 31 percent of the delegates required to clinch to 35 percent.
What’s Ahead
Five states head to the polls a week from Tuesday, on March 15: Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Combined, the states will distribute 29 percent of the delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination. According to polling averages, Trump leads by 14 percentage points in Florida, 13 in Illinois, 11 in North Carolina and 3 in Ohio. Trump likely won’t sweep those states, but he could do a lot of damage if he wins the winner-take-all states of Florida and Ohio.
Even though Cruz had a good night in the March 5 contests and did alright Tuesday, it’s unlikely he’ll do well on March 15. Cruz is in third place in three of the five states and second in another (Missouri hasn’t been polled recently). If Rubio manages to win Florida’s 99 delegates, he could cut Cruz’s lead over him in half. Rubio also seems likely to gain more delegates than Cruz, because he leads Cruz in the proportional distribution state of Illinois. Rubio polls badly in Ohio, but Cruz won’t win that anyway.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
