Cruz Controls District Conventions

Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography.com

As expected, Texas Senator Ted Cruz secured all but one of the 12 delegate spots that were up for grabs on Saturday at the Republican District conventions across the state. The Cruz campaign faced minimal competition from an unorganized Trump campaign. The only delegate spot that the Cruz campaign was unable to claim on Saturday went to Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a three-time congressional candidate who remains popular in Iowa’s second congressional district.

The Cruz campaign also won a majority of seats on the statewide nominating committee that will fill a slate of 15 delegates that will be voted on at the state convention next month. Cruz is likely to get the majority of the at-large delegates, but most people expect the committee to be more willing to build a balanced slate than the supporters of Ron Paul built four years ago.

With the likelihood that Donald Trump will be unable to garner the necessary 1237 delegates to claim the Republican nominations growing, the makeup of the Iowa delegation matters immensely to the Cruz campaign.

There was a common message from those running for national delegate in Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District on Saturday. They intended to vote for Cruz on the first and second ballots, but also pledged not to change the current rules that will govern the conventions. More simply put, the Iowa delegates all pledged to not allow somebody to come out of left field to seek the nomination.

While the Cruz campaign flexed its organizational muscles when the delegates were on the line, the campaign opted not to play in state central committee races. In the Fourth District, all four incumbents were re-elected, and statewide, two-thirds of incumbents were retained. Three state central committee incumbents, Ryan Frederick and Sherill Whisenand in the Third District, and Trudy Caviness in the Second District, were not re-elected.

Whisenand, Caviness, and Frederick are each hard-workers who have donated countless hours in working on behalf of Iowa Republicans. Still, in presidential years, some incumbents can get swept out of office for a number of reasons. While these three individuals will not be on the State Central Committee, they will still be involved at the county level, and frankly, that’s what matters most.

Overall, Saturday was a good day for the Cruz campaign, and in the Fourth District, it was obvious that Republicans were in good spirits and ready for the general election to begin.

Cruz Gets the Big Win He Desperately Needed

Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography. om

A win is a win. Wins in presidential campaigns are necessary, not just to garner the necessary delegates to capture the nomination of one of the two major political party’s, but they also provide the fuel for a campaign to continue on.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz needed a win in Wisconsin not just to further fuel his campaign, but to change the narrative of the Republican primary fight. Cruz needed to win in a rout over Trump. He was successful on Tuesday night, garnering 50 percent of the vote, but more importantly, he walked away with the lion’s share of the state’s 42 delegates.

While the win allows Cruz to begin closing the delegate gap between himself and Trump, the resounding victory is important because it makes it more likely that no candidate will win the 1237 delegates necessary to capture the Republican nomination outright. As it becomes more apparent that Trump win be unable to capture the nomination before the convention, Cruz will be seen as a stronger candidate in the remaining states.

Cruz benefited greatly from the “Never Trump” effort that spent millions of dollars attacking Trump in Wisconsin, and his win on Tuesday means that will likely continue. Another important factor on Cruz’s side is time. The Anti-Trump effort spent a lot of money in previous contests with little to show for it until Wisconsin.

What changed wasn’t the ads or avenue of attack, but the pace of race slowed considerably for the Easter holiday. Easter provided over two weeks for Cruz to campaign and for the Anti-Trump forces to attack the GOP frontrunner in advance of the vote in Wisconsin. It just so happens that there is another two-week period before the next contest in Trump’s home state of New York.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the Cruz campaign and the Anti-Trump crowd approach New York. Not only is it Trump’s home turf, but it will also be expensive to play to win there. Instead, they may choose to ignore New York and instead focus on Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Regardless of what they choose to do, the most important thing is that they have the time to conduct a thorough campaign.

Trump can survive the loss in Wisconsin, but it’s the campaign that is sure to follow that will cause him problems. Trump let many of the negative ads running against him in Wisconsin go unanswered. The decision to do so is probably rooted in the belief that the Anti-Trump movements had not been all that effective. Trump’s luck ran out as the campaign slowed down, and now if he doesn’t fund a paid media campaign to counter the negative campaign being run against him, he could suffer the same fate.

Cruz Needs to Own Wisconsin, Not Just Win

Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography.com

It was never my intention to not publish a single word on this site last week. I didn’t go anywhere, but the mental week away was good for me. Like so many people, I too have had enough of the Republican presidential race. I’m glad that the two-week hiatus between contests is over. Tomorrow’s Wisconsin primary is incredibly important for all the candidates involved. Below are some brief thoughts.

1. It’s not good enough for Texas Senator Ted Cruz to win Wisconsin. He needs to walk away with the bulk of the 42 delegates up for grabs. The Cruz campaign knows this, which is why they spent considerable time campaigning across the state. To keep delegates away from Donald Trump, they need to win the state AND win congressional districts. Trump has had an awful week and is not favored to win, but Cruz has yet to beat Trump in a primary contest outside of his home state of Texas and neighboring states.

2. What does a win look like for Cruz? Anything that keeps the Trump under 50 percent of the available delegates. Still, a Cruz victory might be more symbolic as it will put the GOP in a defensive posture for the first time since the Iowa caucuses. The calendar favors Trump for the rest of the month, but as is always the case, a big win pumps new life into a campaign.

3. The Democrat race is getting interesting, as Bernie Sanders has won five contests in a row and narrowed Hillary Clinton’s delegate lead. Sanders is leading Clinton in the Wisconsin polls by a narrow margin. Another Sanders win would not only keep his streak alive, but also underscore how his candidacy is a real threat to Clinton. Sanders is not just hanging on, he’s scoring real points.

On the home front:

My dire attitude towards presidential politics is matched by my opinion of local politics. Thank goodness local politicians don’t act like presidential candidates, but they do little to inspire me. That may seem harsh, and while I appreciate the work they do, much of which goes unnoticed, I’m looking for bold ideas. I understand they might not pass, but it seems like the greatest debate this legislative session was over firearm suppressors. I support the legislation, but rolled my eyes when it was reported that Iowa is the 42^nd state to do legalize the sale of them. Can we lead or be innovative on something? Please?

My outlook improved when I read a heartfelt op-ed in the Des Moines written by Polk County Supervisor Robert Brownell on human trafficking. It was a powerful piece. I encourage you all to read it. Also deserving recognition on this issue is Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court Mark Cady, and State Representative Zach Nunn. Nunn’s legislation died in the legislative funnel. Go figure.

Worth reading:

Ron Brownstein of The Atlantic is one of the more intelligent reporters I’ve come across in my time doing this. I love it when he calls because I either learn something from our conversation or he makes me think about something in a way I have not done before. Last week, he wrote about how Trump’s general election path would rely heavily on the rust belt. It’s great stuff. Check it out.

 

 

Trump Continues to Roll with Big Arizona Win– Cruz Scores Symbolic Victory in Utah

Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography.com

Americans woke up on Tuesday morning to news of terrorist attacks in Brussels that left at least 30 people dead and hundreds more wounded. By night’s end, voters in Arizona, Utah, and Idaho would cast their votes in the presidential race. As has been the case for Republicans for the past five Tuesday’s, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump continues his march to the Republican nomination.

Trump easily won Arizona’s 58 delegates, meaning he was able to keep pace in winning enough of the available delegates to reach the 1237 delegates necessary to claim the Republican nomination. Texas Senator Ted Cruz was able to win the Utah Caucuses, and even broke the 50 percent threshold that garners all of the state’s 40 delegates, but it’s more of a symbolic victory. The Utah win helps Cruz continue on, but does little to stop Trump’s momentum.

For weeks, national media outlets have devoted significant time and space to covering the “Stop Trump” movement, yet to date, there hasn’t been any indication that the effort has been effective in slowing Trump’s momentum. The month of April looks even better for Trump as the race heads back east with contests in Wisconsin, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

Not only is the GOP race returning to the northeast, an area where Cruz is likely to struggle, but the terrorist attacks in Brussels only underscore the main themes of Trump’s campaign. Trump has made securing the border between the United States and Mexico his main objective. Before the attacks in Brussels and Paris, most Republican voters already supported securing the border. The recent attacks only make Trump’s plan to build a wall only more desirable.

With Arizona’s 58 delegates now in Trump’s column, he needs 498 delegates to claim the Republican nomination. With 984 unallocated delegates remaining, Trump now only needs to capture about 51 percent of those delegates to win. The next big contest will be in Wisconsin on April 5th. It is by far the friendliest turf for Cruz in the month of April, but in order to actually stop Trump, Cruz will need to win at least five of Wisconsin’s congressional districts, something we have yet to see him do outside of his home state of Texas.

Ted Cruz’s Road to Nowhere.

Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography.com

Larry Sabato loves to quote T.S. Eliot. In writing about the demise of Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign on Wednesday, Sabato wrote, “To borrow from T.S. Eliot: This is the way Marco Rubio’s campaign ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

Cleaver. Accurate. Well done!

At this time four years ago, Sabato was also quoting T.S. Eliot. “Three of the four candidates for the Republican presidential nomination — Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul — might soon agree with T.S. Eliot: for them, April may indeed be ‘the cruelest month.’”

Before we get too carried away, lets look at where things stand today in the GOP delegate race. According to Real Clear Politics, Trump has accumulated 646 delegates, Cruz 397, Rubio 169, and Kasich 142. For comparison’s sake, in 2012, Mitt Romney had racked up 494 delegate to Santorum’s 251 right before St. Patrick’s Day.

One would think comparing the current nomination fight with the one just four years ago would be an apples-to-apples comparison, but it’s not that easy. The states that have gone are similar, but the most notable difference is Texas, which didn’t vote until May 29^th in 2012. The delegate haul from the Lone Star state accounts for a fourth of Cruz’s delegates to date.

Sabato’s blog post on Wednesday morning was titled, “Titanic Tuesday: Trump Leads but Doesn’t Finish the Job.” It is notably different from his March 15, 2012 headline that read, “Romney Set to Dominate Race Through April.” What’s fascinating to me is how differently the media and prognosticators are treating the 2016 frontrunner in comparison to Romney four years ago.

Let’s be honest, not only could Sabato’s most recent headline legitimately read, “Trump Set to Dominate Race Through April,” but one could have borrowed the same opening sentence. “Two of the three candidates for the Republican presidential nomination — Ted Cruz and John Kasich — might soon agree with T.S. Eliot: for them, April may indeed be ‘the cruelest month.’”

Like Romney, Trump is set to pad his delegate lead in the month of April. This year’s slate of April primaries mirrors what was on the docket back in 2012. Wisconsin, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island are the states in play next month, and they comprise a total of 309 delegates.

Sabato’s 2012 guesstimate before the April contests awarded Romney 193 of the 282 delegates that were available. Sabato had Santorum winning his home state of Pennsylvania, which made up nearly half of the 89 delegates Sabato projected for him. As we know, Santorum ended his campaign before Pennsylvania voted.

In order to make this easy, let’s just assume that Trump wins Arizona and American Samoa to close out March with 713 delegates. Let’s give Cruz all the delegates from Utah. And even though North Dakota’s delegates are all unbound, lets just give those all to Cruz while we are at it. That brings Cruz up to 465 delegates.

If we stick with the same percentage allotment of delegates that Sabato used in 2012, it means after April’s 309 delegates are accounted for, Trump’s delegate count reaches 923. If we award Cruz the other 99 delegates available, which frankly isn’t going to happen, he only gets to 564 delegates. Why does this matter? Because after April, it will be mathematically impossible for Cruz to win the necessary delegates to capture the GOP nomination.

Meanwhile, Trump will only be 314 delegates away from claiming the nomination. As the only viable candidate in the race, Trump should be able to secure the necessary delegates he needs. Do you really think voters is states like California, Oregon, and Washington are going to turn out for Cruz who doesn’t have a path to the nomination? I don’t.

As the race draws to a close, Trump, like every frontrunner before him, will grow stronger as winning the nomination become inevitable. The same stories we see today about contested conventions were also written four years ago. The only difference is that Romney actually had a communications team that proactively drove the narrative that only he could win the nomination.

Donald Trump may be the master of dominating a news cycle, but not having a communications team that pushed back every day on what others are saying about the race is making life difficult for him. Don’t fool yourselves, Trump has clear path to 1237. Ted Cruz and John Kasich on the other hand, have a road to nowhere.

 

 

Kasich gets his, but Trump begins to pull away

Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography.com

While the news media continues to report on how Republicans can’t stomach Donald Trump, the New York billionaire continues to rack up wins and accumulate delegates. Reaching the necessary 1,237 delegates to claim the nomination may be difficult for Trump, but he is the only candidate with a reasonable shot at winning the nomination outright.

Trump won contests in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and the Northern Mariana Islands on Tuesday.  The only blemish on the night was Ohio, where John Kasich, the current governor of the state, won with 47 percent of the vote and took home all 66 delegates. Even still, Trump was able to hold the home state governor under 50 percent and garnered 36 percent of the vote for himself.

Kasich, who finally won a state on Tuesday, has no possible route to accumulate the necessary delegates to win the nomination. Regardless, by preventing Trump from getting Ohio’s 66 delegates, Kasich makes it more difficult for Trump to get the delegates he needs. The problem for Kasich is that he probably can’t post a win anywhere else. On Tuesday night, he announced he was headed to neighboring Pennsylvania. While the move makes plenty of sense, a quick look at the Ohio results map shows that Trump won counties all along the eastern portion of Ohio that borders Pennsylvania.

If Trump was again the big winner, Florida Senator Marco Rubio was the big loser. Rubio was trounced in his home state, losing to Trump by 19 points. In fact, Rubio only carried Miami-Dade County. It was evident that Rubio wasn’t surging in his home state, but such a lop-sided loss has to sting. Rubio clearly saw the writing on the wall and announced he was suspending his campaign early in the night.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz repeatedly says that he is the only credible alternative to Donald Trump in the Republican presidential race. He also likes to say that he is the only candidate who has “repeatedly” beaten Trump. While both statements are factual, Cruz continues to fall behind Trump in the delegate count, and there doesn’t appear to be a roadmap that would actually allow him to edge out the New York billionaire for Republican nomination. Once again, Cruz was competitive with Trump in states like Illinois, Missouri, and North Carolina, but he failed to pull out an actual victory.

Despite not winning any state on Tuesday, Cruz will continue to accumulate delegates, but he needs to beat Trump in a primary contest if he ever hopes to derail Trump. The upcoming calendar also isn’t favorable to Cruz. His best chance to post a victory will be next Tuesday when Utah voters caucus, but Trump is expected to win Arizona. The month of April is comprised of only primaries and the friendliest turf for Cruz is Wisconsin.

Even though it currently appears possible to prevent Trump from getting the1237 delegates he needs, the pressure is still on Kasich and Cruz to find places to win. The month of April, in which New York, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin vote poses a difficult obstacle for the Cruz campaign to maneuver. With every win Trump gets, the more he is able to pull away from Cruz in the delegate count, and the more inevitable Trump becomes.

It’s Harder and Harder to Stop Trump when he Keeps Winning

Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography.com

According to the Republican establishment and their friends in the media, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign had stalled or at the very least it had plateaued prior to Tuesdays elections. Some even suggested that it was on the verge of imploding.

Selling the public on the idea that voters have grown tired of Trump’s shtick has always been easy, and even if you are growing tired of the billionaire’s antics, one can’t dispute his ability to win states.

On Tuesday night, Trump claimed victories in Mississippi and Michigan, the two biggest delegate prizes of the night.  He also won Hawaii. The wins increase the number of states that he has carried to 15. Texas Senator Ted Cruz has won six states, but his campaign has yet to find a way to beat Trump in a primary outside of his home turf.

Cruz rightfully points out that he is the only candidate in the race who has actually beaten Trump in a nomination fight, but he hasn’t proved that he can consistently beat Trump in conventional primary contests. It’s surprising that Trump has been able to win states in the south that Rick Santorum won in 2012. Trump has won Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. Those are all states that a conservative like Cruz should have won.

Trump’s ability to win in Mississippi with nearly 50 percent of the vote, a state won by Santorum but split evenly between Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich in 2012, undermines Cruz’s claim that not only is he the best candidate to challenge Trump, but that he also has a pathway to wining the GOP nomination outright. Trump trounced the field in Michigan. With 90 percent of the vote in, he was leading Cruz by over 140,000 votes. His lead in Mississippi, which had a much smaller turn out, was almost 40,000 votes.

It appears that Cruz will get a win in Idaho, another low-turnout contest. Regardless of the size of the contest, wins are important, but if Cruz actually wants to challenge Trump for the nomination, he needs to do better than just notch an Idaho victory. Tuesday’s results also make it clear that the Cruz campaign’s decision to compete in Florida, a winner-take-all state, is a fool’s errand that actually could end up helping Trump secure the nomination.

3/8/2016 Mid-Day Must Reads

Why Ted Cruz might torpedo the strategy to stop Trump

The payoff for Cruz is clear. Rubio is struggling tremendously in the primary so far. Even if he wins Florida, it’s really hard to envision him getting to 1,237 delegates. If he doesn’t win Florida, it could be so embarrassing for him that he could drop out of the race.

The Republican establishment wants to stop Trump. Ted Cruz wants to beat Trump.

The problem is that if Rubio doesn’t win Florida’s 99 delegates, someone else will. And that someone is likely to be Donald Trump. Then, he’ll be on pace to win an outright majority of delegates by the end of the primary.

That’s the “stop Trump” crowd’s worst nightmare.

Donald Trump Would Be Easy To Stop Under Democratic Rules
By Nate Silver

Trump will have a chance to improve on his pace as the calendar turns toward states that have more aggressive delegate allocation methods — especially winner-take-all Florida and Ohio, which vote March 15. If Trump wins both states, he’ll have a good chance of eventually getting a delegate majority. If he loses both, we might be headed to a contested convention in Cleveland. And if Trump splits them — perhaps the most likely outcome based on where polls stand — we’ll continue to be on knife’s edge.

If the Republican nomination were contested under Democratic delegate rules instead, Trump would find it almost impossible to get a majority of delegates, and a floor fight in Cleveland would already be all but inevitable.

But switching to Democratic rules would make a big difference. Between the highly proportional allocation method and the large number of superdelegates, Trump would have received only 306 delegates so far, more than any other candidate but still just 34 percent of the total. It would be hard for Trump to ever get a majority under these circumstances; he’d have to get at least 72 percent of the elected delegates from the remaining states, or he’d need help from superdelegates who might not be willing to provide it to him.

Mike Huckabee wins Naples Derby

We have all watched the Presidential election this year and all know that candidate Mike Huckabee gave it all he had. He graciously bowed out in February. Although not in the Presidential campaign his four-legged namesake posted a winning campaign in the $50,000 Naples Fort Myers Derby series and finished on top on March 5^th.  Brindle kennel’s Mike Huckabee a strapping 80-pounder and the bet favorite, thrilled both on and off-track fans that watched the handsome black son of Trent Lee and Twinkles come from behind and win in a powerful five-length victory over the 660-yard course.

Ted Cruz’s risky detour to crush Marco Rubio in Florida
By Margaret Carlson

It’s been a huge week in the presidential campaign. We’ve gone from Donald Trump having an unstoppable path to the Republican nomination to the possibility that he could be beaten.

That’s the good news for the majority of Americans who believe that an authoritarian, ill-informed, bellicose real estate mogul is unsuited to be president.

The bad news is that the vehicle of Trump’s defeat is turning out to be Sen. Ted Cruz.

With his faux-folksy recitations of Dr. Seuss and “The Princess Bride,” his singular insistence that Obamacare could be repealed, and non-stop obstruction fueled by his self-regard as the only principled man in Washington, he helped grind governing to a halt in recent years. One of the few points of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill is antipathy to Cruz. Vice President Joe Biden captured the feeling at the annual Gridiron Club dinner on March 5, joking that if President Barack Obama really wanted to put his mark on the Supreme Court, he should name Cruz to the open seat. “Before you know it, you’ll have eight vacancies.”

The emergence of Cruz as the savior of his party offers the painful choice between a fast death by gunfire (Trump romping to an unbeatable plurality of delegates within days) or a slow one by poison, as Cruz chips away at Trump’s lead with his latest wins in Kansas and Maine. But there’s no time to waste. The most super of Tuesdays is coming up on March 15 with the winner-take-all contests in Ohio and Florida. If Trump were to win both, the fat lady has sung.

Kasich’s survival strategy
By Kyle Cheney

Blanked in the first 20 Republican presidential nominating contests, the Ohio governor is desperate for a breakout performance Tuesday night in Michigan and a win next week in his home state. That’s because even if he pulls it off — no guarantee when polls show him down by double digits to Donald Trump in Michigan and statistically tied with the mogul at home — his advisers rarely mention what’s likely to come next: another six weeks of winless hell.

That’s because Kasich won’t have another chance at a marquee day until April 26, when five northeastern states — including Pennsylvania, where he grew up — hold Republican primaries.

Don’t Overlook Rubio’s Island Hopping Strategy

It was my belief that Sen. Marco Rubio would have capitalized off of a strong third place finish in Iowa by now, but the Rubio campaign’s poor campaign strategy of believing that early wins were not important combined with a horrific debate performance before the New Hampshire primary essentially has rendered him a non-factor.

Rubio has two wins under his belt, Minnesota and Puerto Rico. Neither are victories that candidates boast about. All that said, I expect Rubio to continue to do well in the U.S. Territories of American Samoa, Guam, Virgin Islands, and the Northern Marianas. I imagine Rubio will also do well in Hawaii. Those contests will only garner him 55 delegates if he gets every single delegate up for grabs.

Like Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Rubio needs a significant home-state victory in Florida on March 15^th. Securing all of the state’s 99 delegates will not only get him back into the nomination fight, but it will also boost the establishment effort to prevent Trump from accumulating the necessary 1237 delegates to capture the Republican nomination. Many have been calling for Rubio to vacate the race, but if you are pushing a convention strategy, you actually need him to remain in the race and win wherever he can.

As of today Rubio has 151 delegates. If he can secure wins in Hawaii on Tuesday and Guam and Virgin Islands on Wednesday, he just might have enough momentum to win pull off a big Florida win, and all of a sudden he’s sitting there with at least 297 delegates, which isn’t anything to sneeze at. In fact, that would surpass the number of delegates that Santorum racked up in 2012.

There are 2,472 total delegates to be had. Trump is racing towards 1237, the number needed to secure the nomination, and while Cruz thinks he can play to win, it’s more likely that he, Rubio, and John Kasich could get to 1237 and prevent Trump from securing the nomination outright. In a race to 1237, Trump actually trails the field by over 100 delegates – 496 to 384.

There are only 1582 delegates remaining to be had. Trump needs over 53 percent of them to capture the nomination. It’s doable, but if he’s shut out in winner take all states like Ohio and Florida, that makes getting to 1237 that much more difficult. Instead of needing 53 percent to the remaining delegates, he suddenly needs to get over 63 percent of the remaining delegates.

It’s hard to see Rubio getting to 1237 on his own, but if Cruz can’t find a way to become more competitive with Trump in states outside of the Bible belt and Trump can’t get to 1237, it’s easy to see how Rubio might be able to be successful in a convention fight. If Rubio and Kasich were somehow able to become a joint ticket, they could easily become big factors at convention, especially if they control the Ohio and Florida delegations.

For all those calling for Rubio to drop out, I don’t think they really understand how the nomination process works. We may shrug off his victory in Puerto Rico, but it gives him momentum, and if he can win the three island contests this week, suddenly he’s back in the thick of things.

Trump Shows Strength on Super Tuesday

Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography.com

Even as establishment Republicans intensified the attacks on Donald Trump over the past week to ten days, the New York billionaire continued to put up impressive wins and continue his march to the Republican nomination.

Trump posted impressive victories in Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Virginia. Trump also won a narrow victory in Arkansas and Vermont. Even in Texas where Texas Senator Ted Cruz won easily, Trump still garnered 27 percent of the vote.

The only real blemish on the night was in Minnesota, a caucus state, where Trump finished well behind Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who finally got his first win under his belt. In addition to winning Texas, Cruz also pulled out a win over Trump in Oklahoma.

Even though Cruz and Rubio were able to get in the win column, Tuesday night’s results did nothing to quell Trump’s dominance over the Republican field. Cruz was expected to win his home state, and his six-point victory over Trump in Oklahoma was also in friendly territory. Cruz also ran strong in Arkansas and Minnesota, but he wasn’t much of a factor is states like Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, other states that he needed to be competitive in.

Rubio’s win in Minnesota may have gotten the money off of his back, but his inability to win in states like Virginia, Arkansas, or Tennessee spell trouble for his campaign. Winning the low-turnout Minnesota caucuses isn’t a lot to hang his hat on before he goes head-to-head against Trump in his home state of Florida on March 15.

The problem for the anti-Trump crowd was on full display Tuesday night. As the frontrunner Trump runs strong everywhere. The same can’t be said of his opponents. Cruz ran strong in caucus states and southern states, but was uncompetitive in places like Vermont, Massachusetts, and Virginia.

Even more problematic for establishment Republicans is that even with all the talk about Rubio last week, he wasn’t able to post the necessary victories to slow Trump’s march to the nomination.

Super Tuesday Results Link