Ted Cruz has won the Wyoming caucuses with the first majority in any state voting in the national Republican primary so far. He leads sizably, with Marco Rubio in second place and Donald Trump in a distant third. John Kasich has yet to win any votes.
With 100 percent reporting, Ted Cruz has won 66.3 percent of the vote, along with 9 of the 12 delegates to be allocated tonight. Rubio has won 19.5 percent of the vote, along with one delegate. Trump has won 7.2 percent, and also one delegate. 7.0 percent of voters are unncommitted, and one delegate of the twelve to be allocated today remains uncommitted.
Trump has won many states, but never with above 50 percent of the vote. Rubio won the first majority in the primaries, but it was in the territory of Puerto Rico. Cruz’s Wyoming win is the first time a GOP candidate has gotten above 50 percent of the vote in one of the 50 states.
Wyoming has a complicated system for determining delegates. The state has 29 delegates, twelve of which are decided tonight. Twelve counties allocate one delegate each. Of these, seven chose Cruz, one chose Rubio, and one chose Trump. The remaining delegates will be allocated during the state convention on April 14. News outlets are not “calling” the race for Cruz because the majority of delegates will not be chosen tonight.
In Guam, Cruz picked up one delegate, Gov. Eddie Calvo, the only delegate to have endorsed a candidate. The five other delegates chosen early this morning remain uncommitted, as are the three other at-large delegates from Guam: the state party chairman, and the territory’s two representatives to the Republican National Committee. These eight uncommitted delegates will meet in the next two weeks to hear from the campaigns and announce their endorsements.
Cruz’s wins only gain him ten delegates tonight, bringing his count up to 370 delegates — 90 behind Trump’s haul of 460. Both are a fraction of the way to 1,237 — half of the available delegates plus one — the number required to win the nomination before the convention in Cleveland in July. In the Miami debate on Thursday, Trump called this a “random number,” but it is exactly the amount a candidate needs to win outright.
Donald Trump literally just called 1,237 delegates “a random number.” NO, it’s the majority of delegates. #stupidity #GOPDebate @PJMedia_com
— Tyler O’Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) March 11, 2016
The Washington, D.C. primary also happened today, but results will not come in until around 9 p.m. Eastern time. There are reports of record turnout, with a wait of over three hours to vote.
This is only one quarter of the line of voters waiting to vote in the #DCGOP election. Turnout is crazy. pic.twitter.com/HK5qQGvzNI
— Teddy McCullough (@mccteddy) March 12, 2016
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