On Tuesday, Donald Trump easily won the Florida winner-take-all primary, and in such a landslide (66 of 67 counties) that Florida Senator Marco Rubio was forced to suspend his campaign. Winning Florida entitles Trump to the state’s 99 delegate votes. Mr. Trump also placed first in North Carolina and Illinois, which will add to his delegate totals. Since those two states have no vote threshold requirement, all candidates, including Rubio, added to their delegate totals. Mr. Trump fought Sen. Ted Cruz to a virtual draw in Missouri, leading by less than 2,000 votes statewide, but due to the congressional district winner-take-all system the state employs his actual delegate take may be as high as 34-15.
In Ohio Governor John Kasich notched an 11-point victory over frontrunner Trump. Therefore, Kasich captures Ohio’s 66 winner-take-all delegates. Currently, Trump has about 660 pledged delegates, while Sen. Cruz, his closest competitor, trails by more than 200 delegates. The question remains, however, whether or not Trump can get to the 1,237 votes needed to win the nomination. Coming up short in Ohio last night likely portends a similar national outcome, which would result in the first contested, or broker, Republican convention since 1940.
On the Democratic front, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have delivered the political knockout punch that she has needed to put the nomination battle to bed. Winning the Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Illinois primaries will increase her already substantial delegate lead, thus beginning to put her in sight of the 2,383 convention votes needed to win the nomination. For his part, Sen. Bernie Sanders only outpolled Ms. Clinton in Missouri.
The next round of presidential voting takes place on:
- March 22: Arizona primary, Idaho Democratic caucuses, and Utah caucuses
- March 26: Alaska Democratic caucuses, Hawaii Democratic caucuses, and Washington Democratic caucuses
- April 5: Wisconsin primary
For more information, please contact David Ashinoff at ashinoffd@agc.org or (202) 547-5013.