Taking time to campaign off the beaten path helped Ted Cruz dominate Republican county conventions in Wyoming, where he won nine of 12 national delegates at stake Saturday.
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In the western state of Wyoming, Texas Senator Ted Cruz crushed Trump by winning 66.3 percent of the ballots in a party caucus, far ahead of Rubio, his nearest rival, who earned 19.5 percent of the vote.
Marco Rubio has won the Republican presidential caucuses in Washington D.C. on Saturday. Clinton won four delegates, increasing her pledged delegate lead over Sanders to 223; an additional 22 votes were cast for “uncommitted” .
In Wyoming, the state party holds a convention to determine how to assign about half of the state’s delegates.
“Trump alternately scares and horrifies me”, said Bryan Marra, a 39-year-old attorney who was running as a delegate for Rubio.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio narrowly beat Cruz to win in Albany County.
It will take 1,237 delegates for any Republican presidential candidate to receive a majority.
Fueled in part by anxiety over Donald Trump, District of Columbia Republicans flocked to a downtown hotel on Saturday to cast ballots in the city’s first-of-its-kind presidential convention. Ted Cruz (R-TX) addresses supporters during a campaign rally March 12, 2016 in Kansas City, Missouri. Both Donald Trump and Marco Rubio each won a delegate each in Wyoming, although Rubio received more than twice as many votes as Trump in the contest.
In Sweetwater County, 45 people supported Cruz, 28 supported Rubio, 16 supported Trump and no one supported Kasich.
Cruz is “the only principled and unwavering conservative” in the race, Dick Shanor said before being chosen to represent Laramie County at the national GOP convention.
Runner-up John Kasich was just 50 votes behind Rubio in the caucuses, and the OH governor will get nine delegates.
The convention had to be extended because hundreds of GOP voters who remained in line at 4 p.m. Saturday when polls were scheduled to close for most voting groups.
“One candidate stands out for his ability to bring his message of conservatism to people who haven’t heard it before”, Lenhart said of Rubio.
The remainder of the state’s delegation to the GOP convention in Cleveland will be decided at a state party meeting to be held next month.
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Many in Wyoming are disillusioned with President Barack Obama’s policies.
