Ted Cruz had an undeniably great night in Wisconsin on Tuesday. He won the statewide vote by double digits over Donald Trump, and kept the #NeverTrump dream of a contested convention very much alive in the process. Still, the Texas senator wasn’t able to keep his rival off the scoreboard completely.
State officials are still at work tallying the remaining votes but the Associated Press has seen enough to make a final call on the bound delegates: Cruz will walk away with 36, Trump with 6, and John Kasich will go home empty-handed as he has more often than not this year.
The GOP primary was a winner-take-most affair, with 18 delegates going to the statewide winner and another three to the winner of each of the state’s eight congressional districts. Given Cruz’s margin of victory in the state—13 points—there was some speculation Tuesday night that the he might sweep all 42 delegates up for grabs. In the end, though, Trump managed to snag a half-dozen. In a normal campaign, six delegates would be a rounding error; in this one, they might just matter. (And, as far as Cruz is concerned, they represent a 12-delegate swing.)
Here is the vote breakdown by district (96 percent of the precincts in each district have reported, so these numbers shouldn’t move very much):
- District 1: Cruz 51 percent, Trump 32 percent, Kasich 15 percent.
- District 2: Cruz 37 percent, Trump 34 percent, Kasich 26 percent
- District 3: Trump 43 percent, Cruz 40 percent, Kasich 13 percent
- District 4: Cruz 53 percent, Trump 27 percent, Kasich 18 percent
- District 5: Cruz 59 percent, Trump 24 percent, Kasich 15 percent.
- District 6: Cruz 52 percent, Trump 33 percent, Kasich 12 percent,
- District 7: Trump 47 percent, Cruz 39 percent, Kasich 10 percent
- District 8: Cruz 48 percent, Trump 40 percent, Kasich 10 percent
As you can see, Cruz dominated across wide swaths of the state and even pulled out a win in the 2nd congressional district, which is home to Madison and the University of Wisconsin. That was the only one of the eight where all three candidates were competitive—which is a really nice way of saying the only place where Kasich actually had a chance. The Ohio governor has now failed to win a single delegate in 21 of the 35 delegate-awarding GOP contests held so far. He still trails Marco Rubio in the delegate race despite the fact the Florida senator called it quits three weeks ago.
Read more of Slate’s coverage of the GOP primary.
