Republican Primaries
The Big Stories tonight on the Republican side are, first, that Sen. Marco Rubio lost his home state of Florida, and suspended his campaign.
The second is that since Florida is a Winner-Take-All (WTA) state, Trump won all of its 99 delegates, while getting less than a majority.
Suspending the campaign means that candidates hold on to their delegates for the convention. In a hung convention, they may be a bargaining chip. The last two weeks, Rubio retreated to Florida to concentrate his efforts on winning his home state. Rubio’s Senate term is up this year, and because Florida law does not allow a person to be on the ballot in two places, he could not also run to be re-elected in the Senate. A lot of money was spent backing him in Florida and in the other states. Some of this was stop Trump money. Trump figures that $43 million of ads against him was spent in the last two weeks. This shows that the Citizens United ruling and PACS do not really pick winners for us.
The Florida result is Trump, 46%; Rubio 27%; Cruz 17%; and Kasich 7%.
The third Big Story is that Gov. Kasich won his winner-take-all state of Ohio. That gives him all 66 delegates. He won among moderates, those concerned with the economy, and those looking for a candidate with experience. Getting the WTA delegates also keep that extra bonus out of Trump’s hands.
The Ohio result is Kasich 47%; Trump 36%; Cruz 13%; and Rubio 2%.
Kasich staying in looks like it helps Trump in WTA states by holding back Cruz from beating him.
Trump has won Illinois which has 69 hybrid votes. The Illinois result is Trump 40%; Cruz 26%; Rubio 22%; and Kasich
Trump has won North Carolina with 72 proportional delegates. The result is Trump 40%; Cruz 37%; Kasich 13%, and Rubio 8%.
At the start of the day, Trump won the North Marianas Islands WTA territory’s 9 delegates.
Missouri is very close, and a hybrid state. Only the 9 at large delegates of the 52 delegates are WTA. There are 5 delegates per district, for 8 districts, so it depends on the breakdown. There are always 3 extra party delegates. Currently, Trump has 40.8% and Cruz 40.6%, with Kasich at 10.1%, and Rubio at 6.1%. Trump and Cruz are only separated by 1,700 votes, out of 900,000. Since the winner gets the 9 WTA delegates, it is a strong argument for voters that every vote counts.
Democratic Primaries
All of the Democratic primaries distribute their delegates proportionally.
Hillary Clinton has swept Florida (214 delegates) with 65% to Sander’s 33%. This is yet another win in a sweep of the southern states for her. It may also indicate that Southern states’ attempts to block minority voters is not working well.
Clinton swept Ohio with 143 delegates by 57% to Sander’s 43%. This is a Rust Belt state, showing that Sanders is not going to make an upset in those states.
Clinton also won North Carolina (107 delegates) with an impressive 55% to Sanders’ 41%.
Clinton is winning Illinois with 50% to Sander’s 49%. Wolf Blitzer is calling these close states nail biters, without telling the audience that they will give about equal numbers of delegates to each. Again, this shows that Sanders is not going to sweep Rust Belt or Midwestern states.
Clinton has just started winning Missouri with 49.6% to Sanders’ 49.4%. The separation is 1,500 out of 620,000. I gave up nail biting 50 years ago, and don’t see why I should start again (no more tests since then.)
In these two states, Clinton is winning among Democratic voters, but independents voting are heavily weighted to Sanders.
