Trump has another Super Tuesday
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Donald Trumps again.
Trump had yet another big, sweeping set of Super Tuesday victories, offset only by John Kasich's win in his home state. He chased "Little Marco" Rubio from the race. And in spite of Trump's Ohio loss, it appears he won enough delegates elsewhere to stay on track for an outright primary win without a contested convention.
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"We had a fantastic evening. I guess we never thought this could happen," a grinning Trump declared from his Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Trump won Florida and all of its 99 delegates, a big boost. He pulled off a solid victory in North Carolina. And he won Illinois, where it appears he may win all 69 of the state's delegates by emerging victorious in every congressional district.
That means Trump may even have offset his Ohio loss to keep him on track to win enough delegates for the nomination.
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Missouri came out as a wash with Trump and Cruz winning roughly the same number of votes and delegates.
Trump was in a good enough mood to even be gracious to Rubio, who he'd been particularly nasty to in recent weeks.
"I want to congratulate Marco Rubio on having run a really tough campaign. He’s tough, he’s smart and he’s got a great future," he said.
In spite of Trump's pet talk, the results are a significant blow to the Florida senator, a one-time rising star in the GOP. After such a brutal loss in his home state — he pulled just a quarter of the overall vote — it's not clear whether he'll ever be able bounce back. Rumors had swirled that he might run for governor in 2018, but that looks less easy now after a crushing loss.
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"We should have seen this coming," Rubio said on Tuesday night, addressing supporters after the state was called, describing a "political tsunami."
And while Kasich was in a celebratory mood after winning his first state of the primary season, he faces a mathematically impossible path to win the nomination outright. The best he and Cruz can hope for is a contested convention. And that looks like less than a certainty after Trump's latest victories.
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Topics Donald Trump Elections
Cameron Joseph is Mashable’s Senior Politics Reporter, covering the 2016 presidential race. He has previously covered presidential and congressional races, the White House and Congress for the New York Daily News, The Hill and National Journal. He is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College, a contributor to the Almanac of American Politics, a music junkie, a Chicago native, and a long-suffering Cubs fan. Follow him on Twitter @cam_joseph.
