Super Tuesday contests

Donald Trump appears to have won all 50 delegates in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary, but this hasn’t stopped certain pundits from proclaiming Marco Rubio the real story. Rubio took second place with just .02 percent more of the vote than Ted Cruz received. While Cruz was supposed to have an advantage given the state’s large evangelical vote, Rubio had the endorsements of key figures in the state’s political establishment, notably Governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott.

Trump won South Carolina, and was actually running a little bit ahead of his position in the polling average after almost all of votes had been tallied. With 94% of the vote counted, Trump almost had 33%. Cruz and Rubio were jostling for second place, but they are so close to each other that either of them can present the result as a tie. Being passed by Rubio isn’t good for Cruz, but Cruz can take some consolation from the fact that Rubio trails him in almost every contest over the next two weeks. Kasich and Bush did worse than I thought they would, and tied each other at around 8%.