If you were looking at the delegate count yesterday, you’d have assumed that those numbers would shift into a huge (yuge?) lead for Donald Trump. Hundreds of delegates were up for grabs on Super Tuesday, and it appeared as though the real estate con man was going to sweep most of the states.
If you had stayed up through last night, you’d have been very, very surprised.
As of now, according to RealClearPolitics, the delegate count is as follows:
There are some missing numbers here, but as of this time, it looks a lot closer than anyone pictured. Donald Trump won 7 of 11 states last night, but was close to losing three of those. As a result of the tightness of some of those races, we now see that both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are still viable candidates. Of course, fanatics on either side will disagree.
Cruz fans will say that Rubio’s only victory in Minnesota doesn’t make him more capable of beating Trump than Cruz. After all, Cruz also beat Trump in Minnesota. What’s more, Cruz has won a total of four states, and has come out over Trump in five. Rubio has only come out over Trump once, in the state he won – barely.
Rubio fans will claim that Ted Cruz has hit his wall. The South was supposed to be his place, and he didn’t do as well as he had wanted to. What is left for Cruz in places where Trump, Rubio, and even Kasich are expected to do much better? Trump has the evangelicals and Cruz has yet to find another in-road into the base that Trump hasn’t already paved over (presumably after the government seized those roads and gave them to him for economic development).
The race is far from over, and I don’t think the electorate has discounted anyone in this race quite yet. Except for Ben Carson, who is just terrible. Please leave, Dr. Carson.
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