Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both secure wins in Arizona primaries
While front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both won Arizona on Tuesday night, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-V.t.) earned major victories by huge margins in other western states.
Business mogul Trump got 47 percent of the vote in Arizona, followed by Cruz with 25 percent and Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 10 percent, according to The New York Times. As of 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 94 percent of the results in Arizona had been reported. This puts Trump at 739 delegates with the winner-take-all state’s 58 delegates.
Cruz, on the other hand, won Utah by 55 points with 85 percent of the precincts reporting, according to The New York Times. Cruz had a strong lead in Utah in polls leading up to Tuesday and was expected to take the state, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages. Since he earned more than 50 percent of the vote — he got 69 percent — Cruz earned all of Utah’s 40 delegates. Cruz now has a total of 465 delegates.
Kasich did not get any delegates on Tuesday, so his total delegate count remains at 143.
To secure the nomination, the GOP candidate would need to earn 1,237 delegates. If no one gets that amount before the GOP convention in July, the nominee for the party would be decided through a contested convention.
Former Secretary of State Clinton beat Sanders in Arizona with 58 percent of the vote with 94 percent of precincts in the state reporting, according to The New York Times. That gives her 51 delegates, putting her total up to 1,681. Clinton needs to earn 2,383 to win the nomination.
Sanders earned 57 delegates on Tuesday with huge victories in Utah and Idaho. In Utah, Sanders won 80 percent of the vote and in Idaho he won 78 percent. Sanders was expected to win both states, as he was up in almost every poll coming out of those states before Tuesday, according to FiveThirtyEight. Sanders’ total delegate count is now at 927.
Published on March 23, 2016 at 1:02 pm
Contact Rachel: rsandler@syr.edu