Shared from the Chicago, IL Patch
http://patch.com/us/across-america/s/fn1mb/cruz-thumps-trump-on-saturday-kasich-and-rubio-reluctant-to-give-inCaucus/Primary Results in Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska: Trump, Clinton win big in Louisiana; Sanders in Kansas, Nebraska.
Voters in Kansas, Kentucky, Maine and Nebraska caucused on Saturday, while Louisiana held a primary as another chapter in the quests for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations fell into the history books.
The first GOP victory of the night came in Kansas for Ted Cruz, who secured 48 percent of the vote. Cruz also won Maine's GOP caucus.
For the Democrats, Bernie Sanders won Kansas and Nebraska. Hillary Clinton claimed the biggest state of the night, however, winning the Louisiana primary and its sizable share of delegates, taking 71 percent of the vote. Overall, Clinton retains her commanding lead in the race for the nomination.
The Republican contest, however, shows signs the jabs among the four candidates will continue unabated. Republican turnout was incredibly strong. And one of Trump's two wins on the night was very close.
Donald Trump was the winner for the GOP in Louisiana, with 47.7 percent of the vote to Cruz's 23.7 percent. And Trump beat Cruz in Kentucky by just 4 percentage points, 35.3 percent to 31.3 percent.
Trump said he was eager to face off one-on-one with Cruz, and said he believes Marco Rubio should drop out of the race. He said Rubio could not hold a fake rally on Saturday and pretend he won.
"So far, everyone who's attacked me has gone down," Trump said.
In these five states, 178 Republican delegates and 155 Democratic delegates were there for the taking.
While Trump and Clinton are leading in the delegate count, the other candidates have shown no signs they are willing to give up on the contest. The Republican establishment has been trying to rally voters around Marco Rubio, in particular, though Trump leads in state victories and delegate totals.
Rubio's results across the board on Saturday were disappointing. He will likely stay in until the March 15 Florida primary, but it will be difficult for him to justify his position as an alternative to Trump. Thus far, he's only won Minnesota.
Rubio told reporters he expected as much.
"The states that voted tonight are states that quite frankly some of my opponents just do better in, we recognized that going in,” Rubio said from Puerto Rico, where Republicans will vote in their primary.
Meanwhile, Cruz won the presidential straw poll taken Saturday by the Conservative Political Action Conference, an organization with about 2,700 young, libertarian leaning activists. More than 40 percent preferred Cruz to Rubio, who took 30 percent, and Trump, who earned just 15 percent. John Kasich came in last with 8 percent.
Cruz, speaking from his Idaho campaign headquarters after his Kansas win, again made the case that he is the best alternative to a Trump nomination.
“What needs to happen is the field needs to continue to narrow. As long as the field remains divided it gives Donald an advantage," Cruz said.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich finished at the bottom of every contest on Saturday. But he's going to press on. Primary contests in Michigan, March 8, and Ohio, March 15, are on deck and he expects to do well there. Kasich believes those states will be game changers.
It's possible the GOP Convention in Cleveland, July 18-21, will be a brokered convention. John Weaver, the chief strategist for the Kasich effort, told Patch no candidate is “on track to win the nomination outright” by winning the required number of delegates.
Weaver said the governor was building “for the long-term” to ensure he would be the best nominee for the party.
After winning delegates on Saturday, Weaver said, the campaign expects to win Ohio on March 15, earning all the state’s 66 delegates, and would shift to a face-off against Trump alone, especially because they believe both Cruz and Rubio will be weaker in future states.
“More than 1,000 delegates will still be available,” according to Weaver. “Cruz needed to get more delegates out of the southeast and caucus states than he was able to get, and his path is closing. The Marco Rubio hype machine is winding down and his bubble will completely pop on March 15 in Florida if he doesn’t win.
"Governor Kasich must win in Ohio to stop Trump, and when he wins Ohio, Kasich clearly becomes the top non-Trump Republican.”
— Patch editor Tony Schinella contributing
KANSAS CAUCUS
Ted Cruz won the Kansas GOP caucus, while Bernie Sanders won for the Democrats. On Saturday morning, Trump appeared at a Wichita rally, where he was booed by Cruz supporters, and Cruz appeared at his own rally in the same location just an hour later. Cruz is leading in the cities and rural areas and with working-class evangelicals.
In 2012, Kansas went for Rick Santorum and in 2008, Mike Huckabee prevailed with Kansas Republicans. A GOP official told CNN turnout was so high that some caucus sites ran out of ballots and more needed to be printed.
KENTUCKY CAUCUS
Election officials say the voter turnout in the Bluegrass State has been "phenomenal." At 10:50 p.m. Saturday, Trump was declared the winner with 35 percent of the vote. Cruz took second place with 31 percent. Trump waited until Kentucky was decided before he spoke at a news conference in West Palm Beach, Florida.
LOUISIANA PRIMARY
Donald Trump's victory in the Louisiana Republican Primary comes as no surprise to most. Trump polled at the top of the class in surveys conducted in the week leading up to the primary, and his raucous New Orleans rally Friday served to feed the frenzy of his supporters within the state. Louisiana Republicans on Team Trump cheer on his controversial idea to build a wall between Mexico and the United States and his never-back-down approach to foreign relations.
Hillary Clinton has led Louisiana Democrats out of the presidential primary woods. Polls preceding the state's primary election predicted she'd win by a large margin, and the unofficial results just about meet those expectations. Bill Clinton's Louisiana rallies Thursday and Friday may have helped cement his wife's plans for affordable education, a reduced prison population and equal pay in the minds of Louisiana voters. The support of African-American communities is also credited with Clinton's success in the state.
MAINE CAUCUS
Just before 9 p.m. Eastern time, Ted Cruz was declared the GOP victor in the Maine caucus. Cruz's win in Maine was considered a surprise. Pundits had named Trump the favorite in the contest based on his wins in neighboring states, the momentum he had picked up on Super Tuesday and the endorsement of Maine Gov. Paul LePage. Cruz's victory was attributed to the support he picked up from evangelicals tired of Trump's inflated style.
NEBRASKA CAUCUS
Sanders landed a generous victory in Nebraska thanks not only to favorable demographics, but to voter turnout so high several precincts were forced to relocate in search of larger space. That said, Sanders' roughly 10-point margin of victory pales in comparison to President Barack Obama's 35-point landslide defeat of Clinton in 2008.
