Sen. Ted Cruz quietly swept up most of the delegates up for grabs on Saturday, continuing to dominate GOP front-runner Donald Trump in the delegate-gathering ground game.
At the Maine GOP convention, Cruz won 19 of 20 delegates. He lost one delegate slot to Trump-backer Gov. Paul LePage. In Utah he pulled in an even greater haul, claiming 36 of 37 national delegates. The Texas senator was victorious in both states’ caucuses last month.
The wins mean that most Maine delegates bound to support Trump on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in July will likely switch to support for Cruz on the second ballot. It’s another blow to the already long odds Trump faces if he does not win the nomination on the first ballot.
In the one state that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio won before he ended his campaign, Minnesota, Cruz picked up nine delegates from three districts. He also snagged one of three delegates from a congressional district in South Carolina, while the other two went to Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
In Kentucky, Trump seemed to walk away with more delegates than Cruz, but not by much. The state’s delegate process is unique because party leaders and insiders run it. Trump’s narrow victory over Cruz in Kentucky’s GOP caucus in March, combined with allocation of 25 at-large delegates at Saturday’s state convention, earned him a total of 17 delegates, according to CNN. Cruz got 15, while Kasich got seven. Rubio also earned seven delegates.
Cruz’s gains this weekend may further frustrate Trump, who says the Republican nomination process “rigged” because Cruz has been able to woo delegates in states where Trump won the popular vote. However, it may be too little too late.
It is mathematically impossible for Cruz to win 1,237 needed to clinch the nomination before the GOP convention in July. After Trump won a solid victory in his home state of New York last week, polls show him prepared to prevail in Tuesday’s primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
According to the latest tally from the Associated Press, Trump leads the field with 845 delegates. Cruz has 559 delegates while Kasich lags behind with 148 delegates.
