Michigan and Other March 8 Primary Results
Donald Trump indirectly gave the Citizens United ruling a great trashing by claiming that in the past week there had been $38 million spent in ads to tear him down, and he just won Michigan and Mississippi. He also cleverly used his victory speech to thoroughly defend himself against Mitt Romney’s attack on his business success, with free and lengthy press coverage.
Michigan has 59 delegates. Trump won Michigan with 37%, roughly where the polls predicted. Kasich is coming in second with 25%, since he is also from the Midwest state of Ohio. Cruz is getting 24% and Rubio 9%. This means that only Rubio is left out of the proportional split with less than 15% of the vote.
The networks are still pretending that each race is a horse race, where you have to stay glued to the set furlong by furlong. Right now, both Democrats and Republicans are in proportional split states until March 15, when Republicans can be winner-take-all if a candidate gets more than 50%. Winning by a nose only gives you an extra delegate or two.
In Mississippi, Trump has won with 48%, very close to half, and beating Cruz, a Southerner, who has 36%, with Kasich at 9%
In Idaho, with 32 delegates, Cruz is ahead with 41%, Trump second with 30%, Rubio third with 19%, Kasich with 7%.
As of now, Trump has 447 delegates, Cruz has 346, Rubio has 154, and Kasich has 53.
In the Democratic races, Clinton is winning another Southern state, Mississippi, by an amazing 82.6% to Sander’s 16.5%. There are 36 delegates here. Clinton was a Southern First Lady, and is a strong backer of President Obama.
Sanders ‘won’ Michigan with by 49.9% to Clinton’s 48.2%. So the 130 delegates will be about equally split. This shows that outside of the South, Sanders can equally challenge Clinton. This is an open primary state, and 75% of independents who voted backed Sanders. It is still tough for Sanders to just break even by the convention, since Clinton has 458 Super Delegate votes to Sander’s 22.
As of now, Clinton has 760 delegates, and Sanders has 546.
