With nearly all of the Super Tuesday states called, here are a few thoughts on the Republican presidential primary results.
Trump’s delegate growth slows
Prior to Super Tuesday, Trump had won two-thirds of delegates available at that point. Despite his many wins on Tuesday, Trump’s delegate accumulation slowed. He now has less than half of all delegates that have been distributed so far. Cruz and Rubio had about 13 percent each. Now Cruz has 31 percent and Rubio has 21 percent, according to projections from the New York Times.
Don’t get me wrong: Trump is still well ahead of the competition and the most likely candidate to win the GOP nomination. He’s 20 percent of the way to clinching the nomination. Tonight seems to have slowed his path to the nomination. It used to seem plausible Trump might clinch the GOP nomination by the end of March if he kept winning so quickly. Now, even if he won every single delegate going forward, he couldn’t clinch a majority of the delegates until April 19, when his home state of New York votes.
Rough for Rubio
This was not a good night for Marco Rubio. He did manage to win Minnesota resoundingly, by almost 10 percent. But that success wasn’t mimicked across the rest of the country. He was running strong for second against Cruz in many polls, so it seemed like Rubio might emerge from the night with more delegates than Cruz.
Instead, it was Cruz celebrating multiple victories Tuesday, taking a significant lead over Rubio in the delegate count. Rubio’s only second-place finish was Virginia. Cruz also took home the big prize of Texas. Granted, it’s his home state, but he won strongly enough to keep Rubio from earning any at-large delegates. According to New York Times projections, Cruz will end the night with roughly 177 delegates to Rubio’s 122. According to Betfair.com, Rubio’s odds of winning the nomination dropped from 14 percent at 7 p.m. Tuesday to 9 percent at 11 p.m.
What’s next?
Republicans will vote Saturday in Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine. Between the four states, there’s only been one poll conducted in the last month — it showed Trump up by 13 points in Kentucky. It remains pretty unclear what will happen Saturday. The tone of the race has changed in the past week with Cruz and Rubio going negative against Trump. Will those attacks resonate more the longer they go on? There’s another debate on Thursday for those attacks to sink in. That could result in a further deceleration of Trump’s path to the nomination.
If Cruz or Rubio don’t start winning soon, it’s going to be over. On March 15 and later, delegates in a few large states get awarded on a winner-take-all basis. That’s when Trump’s roll could become impossible to stop.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
