How The States Voted On Semi-Super Saturday

Our colleagues at ABC News just called Nebraska for Sanders. He is leading there by about 10 percentage points with about 75 percent of the vote counted. A win is a win, but his margin is smaller than we’d expect if the race were tied nationally. Not only that, but it’s far less than 35-percentage-point margin then Sen. Barack Obama won the caucus by eight years ago.

Maine is officially called for Cruz, who won 46 percent of the vote and 12 delegates. Trump took 33 percent and 9 delegates, Kasich took 12 percent and 2 delegates and Rubio won 8 percent and no delegates. That’s a very healthy victory for Cruz in the Northeast, where he has otherwise struggled. Trump had easily won in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which border Maine. Did Trump fall short in Maine because it was a caucus? Did something change in the past few days that allowed Cruz to crush him? Is Cruz finally coalescing the anti-Trump vote? We obviously don’t know, but it was a good night for Cruz in Maine and a bad one for Rubio and Trump.

So far, 16 Republican states have fully reported results (including Kansas tonight) and in none of them has a candidate won a majority of the vote. The nearest misses were in Massachusetts, where Trump got 49 percent of the vote, and in Kansas, where Cruz got 48 percent. We’ve got too much going on tonight to confirm whether this is a record of some sort, but it looks as though it might be. In the contentious 1972 Democratic primary, for example, Ed Muskie got 62 percent of the vote in Illinois, the fourth state to vote. In the 2012 Republican race, Mitt Romney got (just barely) over 50 percent in Nevada, the fifth state to vote. Note, however, that Trump could plausibly get to 50 percent in Louisiana, where polls close in a few minutes. He was as high as 48 percent in one poll of the state.