Trump rolls on Super Tuesday III
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Ballotpedia's scope changes periodically, and this article type is no longer actively created or maintained. If you would like to help our coverage grow, consider donating to Ballotpedia.
This article covering the 2016 presidential election was written outside the scope of Ballotpedia's encyclopedic coverage and does not fall under our neutrality policy or style guidelines. It is preserved as it was originally written. For our encyclopedic coverage of the 2016 election, click here.
March 16, 2016
Billionaire developer Donald Trump won the March 15 Republican presidential primaries in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina and was leading in the tabulated vote in Missouri with 99 percent of the precincts reporting. The only hiccup on the day came when Ohio Gov. John Kasich handily carried his home state, winner-take-all primary.
Trump’s victory in Florida was sweeping: He captured every county in the state except for Miami-Dade, which was won by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whose disappointing and distant second-place finish prompted him to suspend his presidential campaign.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was the runner-up to Trump in three of the contests: Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri, where he trailed GOP front-runner by less than 1,800 votes or 0.2 percent. After the balloting, Cruz reiterated his view that the GOP contest has boiled down to a two-person race between Trump and him. But in Illinois, Kasich performed relatively well in the Chicago area, while Cruz ran stronger in the rural downstate portions of the state.
North Carolina saw a close race between Trump and Cruz, with Trump running up large margins in the eastern part of the state, while the Texan carried the Research Triangle area.
Kasich’s 47-to-36 percent victory over Trump reflected his broad popularity in the state. He won the Cleveland metro, the northern tier of counties in the state that includes Akron and Toledo, the Columbus metro area—a portion of which Kasich long represented in the House of Representatives—and the Cincinnati area. Trump carried several rural western counties and those in the Ohio River Valley.
Kasich hopes that his home state win propels him to the GOP nomination, but that was also his first primary victory this year and he remains a long shot for the GOP nomination. At the same time, his strong showing in the general election battleground will probably earn him serious consideration for the second spot on the GOP ticket.
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia and co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics. He has conducted elite opinion surveys for National Journal, CNN and the on-line polling firm, YouGov.
See also
- March 15 presidential primary elections and caucuses, 2016
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Miami CNN Republican Debate (March 10, 2016)
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
- Presidential election, 2016/Straw polls
