By: Associate Editor Alec Dent
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The post-Super Tuesday Republican race continued this past week, with five primaries this weekend. The four primaries and caucuses held Saturday continued the trend of Donald Trump underperforming, though this time to a greater degree. Ted Cruz walked away the big winner of the day, winning Maine and Kansas and drawing within 82 delegates of Trump. While Trump didn’t do as well as he might have liked, he still won 53 delegates courtesy of victories in Kentucky and Louisiana.
Marco Rubio looks to have fallen behind Cruz and Trump, though he is projected to win in Puerto Rico today and is expected to do better in the coming weeks, with his home state of Florida on the horizon. In any case, Rubio has expressed a willingness to stick in the race even if he loses the Sunshine State, perhaps hoping for a fractured convention.
John Kasich gained a handful of delegates this weekend, bringing his total to 35, significantly behind third-place Rubio. Routinely polling at under 10% nationwide, Kasich’s nomination hopes hinge on Ohio, the state he formerly represented in Congress and later as Governor. Even if he manages to win Ohio, Kasich is also unlikely to win the Republican nomination without a fractured convention.
The coming week has four states on the line for Republicans: Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, and Michigan. In total, 150 delegates are up for grabs. Then on March 12th, Washington D.C. and Guam will distribute their delegates before we get to some of the most important primaries of the race: winner-takes-all primaries.